Guerrilla Style

Miriam Barr fills us in on what happens when you give the reTHiNK Possible Worlds crew permission to colour in the streets.

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All of the traffic was heading in one direction, and we were heading in another. On Friday night, while most of Auckland was city-bound or TV-bound for the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony, we were on our way to rendezvous with the Guerrilla Poets and Taimi from the Like Minds, Like Mine team to colour in the streets of Titirangi with chalk and poetry. Granted, Dan did have his transistor radio, so no-one missed the game, if they didn’t want to. 

Our mission was simple: Demonstrate the reTHiNK Possible Worlds message by bringing people out of their everyday worlds for a moment.   

The method was simple too: Entirely colour in the statue of Henry Atkinson outside Lopdell House with chalk and create a poetry trail to lead people there. 

We waited until the theatre show for the evening had well and truly started, and then we got to work.  My first movement was to chalk in huge letters ‘we stand at the precipice of happiness’ (a stroke of Shane Hollands inspiration) right on the threshold of the theatre entrance. So when the theatre-goers left the building, this was the first thing they read, before stepping back out into a world that had surprisingly changed since they went in two hours ago. 

Daniel, Christian and I took the finale poem from the show and chalked it in one stream down an entire block and across the street, right up to Henry Atkinson’s feet. He had by the end of the night become lovingly referred to by all involved as Party Henry.  We gave him a pink and yellow striped coat, an orange vest, a blue tie, matching pants and yellow shoes. 

With a bit of loving attention from his community, Henry was transformed from a stone statue, into a multicoloured personality, capable of lighting up the world around him. Because people did step out of their worlds a moment to look at him, to read the words at their feet, to wonder what it meant – to smile. 

The next day, Titirangi woke up and they found part of their world coloured in. 

It will have washed away by now, in yesterday’s rain. It doesn’t take much to alter the landscape in either way.  Another message that is coming through the reTHiNK Possible Worlds show for me. Nothing’s permanent, life comes in waves.  

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Miriam Barr has been performing her poetry with The Literatti since its inception in 2005. Her poetry has been published in Enamel, Blackmail Press, Landfall, Poetry NZ etc. She is one of the founding Guerrilla Poets, an MC at Poetry Live and a creative writing tutor at Toi Ora.  She is currently involved in the 4th annual Metonymy Exhibition – after a six-week creative blind-date with visual artist Elke Finkenaur. The exhibition runs at Corban Estate until October 9th. The Literatti have been writing and rehearsing reTHiNK Possible Worlds since April. The shows are coming up in October.  

As part of Metonymy at 4 pm on September 17th The Literatti screen the finalists from the reTHiNK Possible Worlds Youtube campaign.  

Visit www.theliteratti.com for more information about reTHiNK Possible Worlds.