Overland literary journal

the basic butchery of what a human being is

Overland Overloaded's Alec Patric, the critic we all love to hate, attended the final of the Overload Poetry Slam last night. It was the first slam the Melbourne writer had ever attended and the odd mixture of fascination and bemusement was clearly evident on his face throughout the evening. Overloaded's Karen Andrews will also be reviewing the slam final.

Friday, Slam Final at Dante’s: Why do we do it? Those of us that get up on stage and those of us that listen? Why the mix of competition and farce in something as pathetically delicate as poetry? There were questions like these at the Slam Finals at Dante’s last night. I also found myself asking why the ill prepared poet, with a nervous poem read from trembling paper, reads to a room full of people who have vague intentions of listening and fluctuating efforts at concentration? If you’ve ever seen Crazy Elf MC a Slam you’ll know things get turned inside out and kicked around, brutally chopped down by his handy Ninja. He’s not kidding when he says, ‘love the poet — hate the poem.’ But since he doesn’t love the poets, and neither did most of the people at Dante’s, the question remains. Why the fuck do we do it? ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 12-09-2009, 5 user comments

we make no apologies. we’re poets

Okay, so it was bound to happen. For the first five days of the Overload festival, the Overland Overloaded team has been right on the money. But now the festival's two days away from being over, we're all tired, we've spent a little too much time wining and poetry-ing rather than typing, reviewing and posting. So this vox pop is one of a series we're left holding, thinking 'Mmm, yeah...probably should have gone up about Tuesday.' We make no apologies. We're poets. And those of us that aren't probably soon will be. But this here is an incredibly important vox pop with Teresa Bell, the amazing and very forgiving director of the Australian Poetry Centre. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 12-09-2009, 1 user comment

pre-nostalgic photo-gazing

Photographer and Melbourne poet Michael Reynolds has been following the 2009 Overload Poetry Festival around, camera in hand, for nine days. With two days left of the festival, we're taking a look back at the launch of Overload 2009.  That's right folks: the festival hasn't even ended yet and the nostalgia's already setting in.

At the Overload 2009 launch, Reynolds snapped Jack Charles' spirited Welcome to Country, Overload President Jon Garrett's speech, The Heart Chamber's Matt Hetherington, Lia Hills, Tom Joyce, Michelle Leber and Marian Spires, MC Myron Lysenko, poet Jennifer Harrison, and Santo Cazzati declaring the start of the 2009 Overload Poetry Crawl. Michael has been there, eagle-eyed despite the torturous schedule, at most Overload Poetry Festival events, crouched low on musty carpets, adjusting his camera lense from the back of the room, creeping up toward the podium for that rare close-up. Here are just a few examples of the moments Reynolds captured at the Overload Poetry Festival launch: ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 12-09-2009, 1 user comment

listen up: afeif ismail abdelrazig

Overload 2009 has only three more days to go, and though we've been managing to catch and review slices of it here on the Overland blog, there's a heap that we've unfortunately missed out on. For those interstate or unable to catch the chaos live, we'll be posting, over the next three days, the odd link to previous poetry performances by some of the Overload 09-ers:

Sudanese poet Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig was a part of Overload's bilingual'Universal Tongue' event. Afeif was born in Elhassahisa, Sudan in 1962. A published poet writer, playwright, artist and human-rights activist, he arrived in Australia in 2003. Afeif’s plays (in Arabic), published in Sudan between 1986 and 2000, include The Race, Doors, The Merchant, Starvation and The Centre of the Circle. He was short-listed for the inaugural Kit Denton Fellowship for Writers of Courage in 2007, for which he submitted his plays The Son of the Sun, The Maze and The Shrouds or the Dead. Afeif has published many works of poetry in English, Japanese and German: Traps and Some Tracks in 2001, Bet of the Argil in 2003, A Passage to the Aroma of Invisibility in 2006, and It’s your Bird in 2007. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 11-09-2009, 6 user comments

a poem that can’t be read aloud isn’t poetry

Koraly Dimitriadis crept into the Northcote Social Club on Wednesday night to review Overload Allstars as part of the Overload Poetry Festival. the Melbourne writer found herself chuckling, enraged, serenaded and turned on. In the end though, she realised that one must ultimately wear their words, in order for them to be appreciated. When asked to review a session at the Overload Poetry Festival I was excited not only at the thought of writing the review, but also at attending a performance poetry event. I’ve always read poetry

Written by Overland Overloaded on 11-09-2009, 18 user comments

a cross between elvis and johnny cash

After performing at La Mama Poetica and Dante`s over the last week as part of the 2009 Overload Poetry Festival, Overland Overloaded's Ben Pobjie contemplates exactly what he expects from a 'poetry' audience, apart from the disgusted walk-outs he's come to love:

After performing at Dante's as part of "Takin' It To The Streets" at the Overload Poetry Festival Launch, a poet approached me with the most surprising compliment I have ever received. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 10-09-2009, 2 user comments

a truckload of valium and an anger management class

Overloaded's Maxine Clarke recalls last night's Overload Poetry Festival slam heat in the lead-up to the September 11 Overload Poetry Slam Final, and the September 12 Skype Slam with Bristol Poetry Festival:

Last night’s Overload Poetry Slam heat at the Northcote Social Club brought home to me what this festival is all about. Slam MC and Melbourne poet, Crazy Elf (aka Joey Kurtschenko), ran the gig in his typical haphazard and obtrusive manner, his masked ninja by his side ready to throttle poets who went over-time. The ninja frowned a lot. She spanked poets. Hard. She threw plastic crates at Crazy. She was seriously in need of a truckload of valium and an anger management class. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 10-09-2009, 4 user comments

how many clouds in the sky?

Melbourne was enchanted last night by the mellow and soulful murmurings of African American jazz poet Lewis Scott. The poet's set at the Northcote Social Club last night as part of the Overload Allstars event left Overloaded's Alec Patric strangely enchanted. Overload Allstars will also be reviewed, in full, by Koraly Dimitriatis.

Lewis Scott is not the Jimi Hendrix of Performance Poets. That’s the way he was introduced last night. If you’re going to insist on musical comparisons, then you’d have to reach for the laid back perfection of Miles Davis with the spiritual drive and intensity of John Coltrane. But that’s just confusing and why refer to musical legends when genius is always unique. It doesn’t mimic or pretend to be anything other than a glorious exhibition of this one individual, alive, present before you, on this stage right now. And Lewis Scott certainly does not leave you wondering on that score. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 10-09-2009, No comments

he made me cry, and I still didn’t want to leave

Wordplay convener Geoff Lemon talks up tomorrow night’s Overload line-up at the Dan O’Connell:
The Tongue is being imported by us direct from Sydney purely for this show. The Tongue is one of the few artists in the country good enough to be signed by record label Elefant Traks. He’s had four substantial JJJ hits in the past couple of years, and is the only out-of-town MC ever to win the Revolver MC Battle. This tells you he’s witty, complex, and incredibly quick on his feet. A masterful performer. So trust me, you don’t want to miss him. If you don’t trust me, go to Myspace and have a listen. Also, even more than usual, we really want to get a good crowd in. If the dude is travelling down just for us, we want to make sure we give him a packed house. So, a little help from the back would be much appreciated. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 9-09-2009, No comments

hats off

Overloaded's Simonne Michelle-Wells has just emerged from a night at La Mama Poetica. Barry Dickins has taken off with her heart and she's been left with Pobjie aftershock and seriously wanting of a hat:

Ever noticed the prevalence of hats at poetry gigs? I counted 10 at What I’m Talking About at Poetica La Mama on Monday night. Seriously, I'm wearing one next time. I need to imbibe that poetic vibe, man.

Wordsmiths riffing to photographers’ work is a seriously smokin’ idea. Monday nights’ poets responded to 17 beautiful photos by Andrew Watson, David Harradine and Jessica Rizzi. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 9-09-2009, 8 user comments

the life of TT.O

Overloaded's Alec Patric muses about meeting poet TT.O, who can be found at Glitch Bar and Cinema this evening for 'But is it Poetry...?' #2, reading with Sandy Caldow, Sean O'Callaghan, and Carolyn Connors:

A few months ago I’d never heard of TT.O. Despite what it says on his card (Famous Poet), I had no idea who he was. Suddenly I saw his name popping up everywhere I was looking. I got into a GDS and there he was beside me. I wrote a poem which was mostly ampersands and other signs and figures spread across a page and was told this was a TT.O inspired poem. I’d still not read any of his poetry. And then I had to practise pronouncing the name. At the last two launches I’ve gone to, we’ve talked poetry, meaning and why Ned Kelly had a dog’s head. I’ve written about him in my blog repeatedly but I’m still not sure why or who this man with no name is. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 9-09-2009, 2 user comments

Look! I’ve just put my pants on backwards.

The Overland Overloaded team recently caught up with Melbourne poet Ezra Bix, MC for Overload Allstars tonight night and Overload’s Surprise Showcase on Sunday, and winner of the Melbourne Writer’s Festival’s Poetry Idol 2008. In his post-MCing frenzy, Ezra may well have let slip about one of the features of the final event of Overload 2009, the Surprise Showcase. You can catch the able MC tonight, and hopefully he'll have taken off those pants and put them back on the way they're supposed to go. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 9-09-2009, No comments

small change

Overload Overloaded's Benjamin Theolonius Sanders took his haiku reviewing on the road to Dante's for the launch of Maurice McNamara's Half Hour Country (Small Change Press, 2009) on Saturday September 5, catching performances by poets Matt Hetherington, Anna Fern, David Stravanger and Graham Nunn. IQ chides the calling of a mobile phone during a poetry reading, laments the physical constraints of the human body and his inability to duplicate himself for the purposes of Overload reviewing, and encounters poet Randall Stephens, whose spoken word CD Tales from an Idiot was launched at Passionate Tongues on Monday evening as part of Overload. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 9-09-2009, No comments