thalia (1952–)

thalia is a member of the legendary Collective Effort Press. Since the early 1970s she has been writing and publishing visual poetry using Pitman's Shorthand, a near-obsolete notetaking script.

Ella Skilbeck-Porter’s essay ‘thalia’s enduring shorthand poetics’:

"Born in Greece in 1952, thalia emigrated with her family to Melbourne in 1954, aged two. She grew up in Fitzroy, and left school at the age of 14 to help her mother, who was chronically unwell, in her shop in Fitzroy. At the age of 20, thalia learnt Pitman's shorthand, taking intensive classes for the duration of a year. When thalia was learning and working with Pitman’s, she saw pictures and thought, ‘This is poetry.’

She writes that in making use of Pitman’s, she achieves several things:

1) Honours countless generations who have had to write in code;
2) Dispenses with the dominant written language, and thus creates a new written word, one which is/was primarily a women's domain;
3) Transforms a worker's tool into art."