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They tell me I should go to rehab, I say: no prose, no prose, no prose.

poets anonymous












there will be no poetry on the overland blog

we will not be able to haiku
or rhyme couplets
or upload audio

there will be no sonnets
or free verse
or fixed verse

we will not hip hop
or scatterbug
or freestyle
your ears will not be challenged by it
your minds will not be stretched by it
your heart will not be pierced by it ... read more

Written by Maxine Clarke on 12-02-2010, 33 user comments

Twelve Days of Christmas – Day Two

Diary of a Free Woman
Day Two: Turtle Doves
Christmas Eve, 24 December 2009

The University is closed for Christmas. I am eating lunch alone in a bakery near the campus. The thought of losing a relationship of thirteen years connects unpleasantly with the taste of pumpkin, spinach, sesame oil and seedy bread: I don’t think I’ll have that salad again soon.

Last night was a vista of passing hours. I don’t feel tired. Sometimes, my insomnia is organic and quite normal; it feels no different from sleeping. The only reason I know I haven’t slept is that I’ve watched four movies in a row. This was pleasant: I can’t remember when I had last done this – perhaps during undergrad days? – or seen a movie from 1938 from beginning to end. And while I watched movies, I thought a lot, revisiting my past. ... read more

Written by Danijela Kambaskovic-Sawers on 12-02-2010, 5 user comments

‘Only one man in a large army’

It seems like just yesterday.

Of course, in all the celebrations, no-one will raise the rather embarrassing fact that, throughout the Apartheid era, most Western governments entirely supported the racist regime’s assessment of the ANC leader as a dangerous criminal. Indeed, it was only in 2008 that the US removed Mandela from its terrorist watch list. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 12-02-2010, 1 user comment

There’s no censorship here

(I should preface this post with a disclosure: I’m a long-time Melbourne International Film Festival [MIFF] attendee, and am quite partial to cinema.)

This week we learned that Richard Moore’s position as executive director of the Melbourne International Film Festival will not be renewed.

Finally, I thought, there is some kind of justice in Melbourne.

It isn’t new, this animosity I have toward Moore. It started when he first took over MIFF and I noticed the ‘State of Israel’ logo appearing on pamphlets and at screenings, next to the inscrutable term: cultural partner. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 11-02-2010, 3 user comments

The increasing weirdness of Melbourne’s ‘race debate’

Yesterday in Drum, I noted the extraordinary comments by the Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan and the contrast they made with the reaction from both the Victorian and Federal ALP.

Sheridan, a man usually only roused by the prospect of a fresh war, wrote in the Oz that ‘through the widely publicised assaults, murders and arson attacks on Indians and Indian houses of worship, Melbourne has become the racist-violence capital of Australia’.

Compare that with John Brumby’s preoccupation with attacking the Indian media and you can think that suddenly Sheridan’s speaking truth to power.

Moreoever, the weird dynamic in which the hard Right denounces racism more fervently than the soft Left continues today, with Liberal leader Ted Baillieu’s sudden intervention. Here’s the Age: ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 9-02-2010, 4 user comments

New law requires women to name baby and paint nursery before getting abortion

An Abbottonian prophecy – courtesy of The Onion.

(There is, unfortunately, a 15 second advert for Zombieland first.)

... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 8-02-2010, No comments

Again on the great blogging debate

Well, not really: just wanted to say that, following those discussions, we have amended what we’re asking in our search for new Overland bloggers.

On the one hand, because we can’t pay them, we don’t expect them to contribute on a weekly basis. We’re happy for people to blog whenever they can.

On the other, because we want to take the web presence more seriously, we will be devoting some editorial resources to it: at very least, providing a certain amount of copyediting to all blog posts, just as we would to other literary contributions.

Obviously, these steps do not settle all the outstanding issues about volunteer labour in the arts sector, nor the relationship between blogging and journals. But hopefully it’s a move in the right direction. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 5-02-2010, 5 user comments

Scattered thoughts on print and literary journals

For obvious reasons, this is a topic of some import here at Overland, as well as everywhere else around the world. The recent Ted Genoways article in Mother Jones has generated considerable discussion; now, the book blog at the LA Times has weighed in. I've just come back from an Australia Council meeting about literary journals, where there was a clear consensus that the issue could no longer be avoided: everyone had to produce some kind of strategy about online and digital content.

A few thoughts, then. It's an inherently difficult debate but it becomes more so because it's often framed so as to confuse a number of different, though related, issues. The Genoways piece – or, more exactly, the most common readings of the Genoways piece – is a good example. Though it's mostly been received as another screed about the evils of teh intertubes, that's not what it's about at all. In fact, the article barely mentions the internet. Genoways' argument is a different, though perhaps related, one about the decline of the status of literature. He writes, for instance: ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 5-02-2010, 15 user comments

Ten confessions of an aspiring writer

Since I'm redrafting my novel Misplaced again in anticipation of finding an agent, or a publisher, or some good news, I thought I'd share some things I've learnt along the way that might help other writers. You can read a short synopsis of Misplaced here and a new extract I've posted here. The extract is a controversial scene that takes place in the Orthodox church.

Lessons during my eighth draft:

1. The internet is evil. Don't justify it by saying it's great for research. If you're like me and you can't control checking twitter and facebook every five minutes, unplug the internet cord and give it to your partner to take to work. I did that today and instead of editing half a chapter, I edited one, but above all, I felt liberated and immersed in the world of my novel. ... read more

Written by Koraly Dimitriadis on 3-02-2010, 17 user comments

How blogging and hip-hop are undermining the US military from within

‘I bet you never stop-loss nobody no more.’

Iraq veteran Marc Hall, aka hip-hop artist Marc Watercus, is currently in pre-trial confinement awaiting court-martial in Georgia. He was jailed on 11 December because he wrote and performed a song called ‘Stop-loss’ – which he then sent to the Pentagon after learning that they were sending him on a second deployment to Iraq.

Stop-loss, an initiative of the Bush Administration, is a policy that ensures there are enough troops to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan by keeping soldiers active after their contracts have ended. Aka: ‘involuntary servitude’.

According to the Pentagon, ‘the policy has affected 120,000 soldiers since 2001, with 13,000 American soldiers currently serving under stop-loss’. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 2-02-2010, 2 user comments

Meanland event nearly sold out

If you're planning to come to the first 'Meanland' event -- the panel discussion featuring Sherman Young, Margaret Simons, Peter Craven and Marieke Hardy -- you'd better get your skates on because it's nearly booked out. Note, too, the Overland lecture with Mungo MacCalllum is also selling briskly.

Both Mungo MacCallum and Margaret Simons will feature in the forthcoming Overland 198. If you're not already a subscriber, you know what to do. The full Wheeler Centre program is available here.


... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 1-02-2010, No comments