Overland literary journal

a hungry alien, forced into a socially acceptable shell

Written by Maxine Clarke on 6-09-2009

Melbourne writer Angela Meyer is the best and most exciting kind of Overload  poet: a first timer! Tomorrow night, as part of the See What I'm Talking About event at La Mama Poetica, Meyer will perform poetry for the first time ever! Meyer, along with four other poets, will respond to photographic work as part of the Festival's ekphrastic series of readings.

Angela  writes a regular literary blog for crikey.com, and her work has been published in Cordite Poetry Review, Page Seventeen, Wet Ink, and many other publications. She was also recently part of the Overland Progressive Writers Masterclass. The Melbourne poets look forward to her stage debut, and hope she sticks with them for a while. The Overland Overloaded team caught up with Angela in the lead-up to her performance:

Who are you?
A 24-y-o writer and blogger living in Melbourne.
No, who are you, really?
 An eccentric, androgenous, obsessive, overwhelmed, expressive, hungry alien forced into a socially acceptable shell.
What are you doing at the Overload Poetry Festival?
I'm reading three pieces based on photographs, in the show 'See What I'm Talking About' at La Mama Theatre, Mon 7th September.
No, what are you really doing at the Overload Poetry Festival?
Watching Barry Dickins, Ben Pobjie, Briohny Doyle and the incomparable Sean M Whelan perform, then running away in fear and shame.
Poetry. Why?
Because I'm allowed to be moody and abstract, or irreverent, or postmodern, or metaphorical, or all of them mixed together. And I can be musical, without being a slave to structure. But seriously, I've written about 200 poems in my life and never shown anyone. I'm a fiction/nonfiction writer and reviewer. Now this.
Are you crazy?
I'm freakin' nuts.
Plug your event.
Well, I've told you the date and time. Why should you come? Well, for the other awesome poets. And in terms of mine - I can promise pieces that cover secret islands, convergence, burning passion, hollow sparkler men and Bill Murray.
Plug it some more.
I might wear something low cut?
Break it down...
incessant thirst remains
 
sticky-hair flask forehead
burnt and cracked jacket without a torso
his dark and crimson
passion-vacuumed
stain on my loungeroom
 
too much for this Saturday
 
I make pancakes