Overland literary journal

words out west

Melbourne poet Lynne Dale is the convener of the monthly Westwords poetry reading, which takes place in the Dancing Dog Cafe` in Footscray and coordinator of Williamstown Writers. Her work has been anthologised, including in The Other Side, Fences and Half Open Doors. Tomorrow (Sunday September 6), Lynne will bring artists and poets of the West together for a special Overload Westword event.

Lynne Dale is the mother of three adult children and a fourteen year old grandchild, and her interview was the inspiration behind the Overland Overloaded team's 'poeranting' (poetic parenting) series of posts, still to come during Overload if our children would just leave us alone and let us write. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 5-09-2009, 2 user comments

come on people, I’ll say it again, it’s not a dirty word!

Fitting, perhaps, that we posted this image yesterday with the above post title, and it somehow disappeared into cyber space and set about messing up the entire Overland Overloaded blog. Still, we managed to get it back again, along with the comment made in the comments section by one Carl Sandburg. Hi Carl, you're now part of Overland Overloaded history.

“Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.” – Carl Sandburg ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 4-09-2009, 6 user comments

circumnavigating the globe on a razor scooter

Anthony O'Sullivan's poetry is jazzy and mellow, soft and soothing, cutting and caressing. The Melbournite, along with poet Jon Garrett, is the able and hilarious MC of weekly Melbourne poetry venue The Spinning Room. You can catch him tonight at Southpaw at 9.30 for session two of Takin it to The Streets, the 2009 Overload pub crawl. Hope you're still hearing right at this stage of the night, because damn, this cat can chant it.

The Overland Overloaded team caught up with Anthony O'Sullivan: ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 4-09-2009, 1 user comment

the rumours that I am actually satan have abated

Who better to catch up with, on the eve of the Overload Opening night and Pub Crawl, than Steve Smart? If you check out anything at all this Overload, make it one of Steve's events. You can find him this coming Saturday evening at Poetic Riffs, Sunday night at Voiceprints, or Tuesday evening at the Spinning Room. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 4-09-2009, 1 user comment

get thee to a nunnery!

Another poet to watch during the Overload Pub Crawl on Friday September 4th is Queenslander Graham Nunn: chair of Queensland Poetry Festival, founder of Small Change Press and organiser of Speed Poets, Brisbane's longest running poetry event. Nunn has four poetry collections hanging off his poetry heavyweight belt, including the most recent Ruined Man (2007), and his blog Another Lost Shark is a fertil

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

drunk on street poetry, with saint unmentionable

Santo Cazzati's poems are like music. They lull and peak, they can be relaxed or frantic, they crescendo madly and laze easily. Santo is, without a doubt, one of the most musical poets on the Melbourne spoken word scene. What will he be like, though, as the MC of Overload's Takin It To The Streets, the official opening night pub crawl of the 2009 Overload Poetry Festival?

Come and join Cazzati this coming Friday September 4, as the night grows poetic and unsteady and three well known bars and pubs in Melbourne city come alive with poetry. Jenny Toune, Graham Nunn, Vivienne Glance, Anthony O'Sullivan and many other astounding wordsmiths will grace (and quite possible lurch on) the stage at Southpaw, Dante`s and Blue Velvet as the Overload Poetry Festival truly takes over the town (click here for full details). ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 2-09-2009, 3 user comments

TT.O, famous poet

As part of the Overload Festival, you are invited, on September 9th, to the Glitch Bar and Cinema at 7.30pm to be amazed by a variety of poetic forms: visual poetry, sound poetry, body poetry, street poetry, ceramic poetry, number poetry, symbolist poetry, political poetry, modernist oral poetry and powerpoint. Overload  will be warmed up and in true form next week with an evening at Glitch Bar and Cinema in Fitzroy, featuring Sandy Caldow, Sean O'Callaghan, Carolyn Connors and TT.O. (pictured). Apart from having seen, and read Caldow's work around, and talented tale-spinner O'Callaghan having narrowly (so I continue to claim) stolen the Doris Leadbetter Poetry Cup from my greedy little anticipating hands in 2007, TT.O continues to be number one on my lengthening list of literary heroes. ... read more

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

aural text overload

Radio made the poetry star... and tomorrow (Wed September 2) from midday till 2pm Melbourne time, Aural Text's Steve Grimwade and Alecia Sometimes will be chatting with Overload Poetry Festival Director James Waller and Melbourne poet and Overland blogger Maxine Clarke about the Overload Poetry Festival, the Overload All-Stars event and the Overland Overloaded blog collaboration. ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 1-09-2009, 3 user comments

wax poetic: kurtschenko’s ninja

Throughout Overland's Overload coverage, we will be calling for poetic contributions in different ways, mostly via the comments section of this website, and through specific 'wax poetic' blog posts.
The below little emerald of a haiku came via Sydney poet Brad Frederikson on Facebook where, as unbohemian as it seems, there is a loud and hundreds-strong national poetry and spoken word network. The poem was in response to a call-out for haiku about the Bar Open ninja (see previous two posts). Feel free to haiku comments in response. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 1-09-2009, 4 user comments

haiku for jesus

Ben Pobjie is New Matilda's resident satirist, a jack-of-all-writing-trades and quite possibly the most side-splittingly offensive poet in Melbourne (for proof, come see his Overload events at La Mama Poetica  or catch him on Friday during the Overload Poets Pub Crawl - you won't correct me). Pobjie is a novelist, stand-up comic, journalist and poet, and for the next fortnight he also joins the Overland Overloaded team in covering the 2009 Overload Poetry Festival. You can expect glowing reviews from Pobjie in addition to scathing ones as, in the interest of subjectivity, he's been given full leave to review his own performances. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 1-09-2009, 2 user comments

$5 jesus poetry, with crazy elf and his ninja

Crazy Elf wants you to pay $5 to slam poetry about Jesus for so his ninja can throttle you...Wait, let me start that again. The Overload Poetry Festival Poetry Slam is set to be an amazing affair, with heats held across Melbourne leading to a final at Dante's on Thursday September 10, and culminating in a Skype slam with Bristol Poetry Festival on Saturday September 12.  Now those are some high stakes. Wednesday night's Jesus (themed) Slam at Bar Open (hot on the heels of the September 11 slam last month) will be a qualifierfor the Overload Slam Final. ... read more

Written by Overland Overloaded on 1-09-2009, 4 user comments