Marco Gliori

Marco is a self-confessed high school underachiever who discovered his passion for poetry quite by chance. He now makes a living out of inspiring thousands of Australian school students to give poetry a go by presenting interactive poetry workshops for primary and high school students.

“I was one of those underachieving, attention seeking boys in the classroom. I was sports mad, there was a creative side to me but it was never harnessed. After school I spent 10 years with the Queensland Police Force. I was made a Detective Senior Constable and was soaring through the ranks. I started to get a reputation as the police poet. It was good PR for the police force as it was during the Fitzgerald Inquiry.”

But Marco knew deep down police work was not where his future lay and decided to quit his secure job to pursue poetry. “It was something that was burning inside me”, he says. “I left with no future, no job, certainly no job as a performance poet and moved to the Sunshine Coast.

Marco began performing his unique style of stand-up poetry and his popularity soon grew. The Queensland Arts Council asked Marco to tour the state and bring poetry to students in rural and remote areas. For the next 10 years, with his young family in tow, he did just that, widening his tour to Victorian schools as well.

“It's everyday stuff . . . I include comedy, race calls . . . for me poetry has always been about the rhythm of words, everyday speech patterns, the way people talk. That makes your poetry very user friendly. I don't pretend to be a literary genius. I'm definitely a performance poet. My poems are now recited all around Queensland, in eisteddfods and schools everywhere. My aim is to entertain and be relevant,” he says. “The day I wake up and the kids are turning their heads and shuffling their feet I just won't do it. There's an energetic feel to my poems, a confrontation of characters, pandemonium - I love putting actions into my poems.”

Marco's newest release is a collection of poems entitled Rise n Rhyme. You can find out more about Marco by visiting his website www.saddlesaw.com.