One of the great things about a first-time and ‘grassroots’ project such as Overland Overloaded is that as you walk down the street shouting about it, people always come out of their houses to stare. Some of them just look bemused, but others pull on their sneakers and join in the chaos. Today, the Overland Overloaded team is joined by Koraly Dimitriadis.

Koraly is a Melbourne writer, currently redrafting her first novel Xenos, a draft of which was shortlisted for the Northern Notes Pitch Competition in 2008. Koraly is currently mentored by novelist Christos Tsiolkas and an article of hers will appear in the Emerging Writers Festival Reader later this year (alongside work from Overland Overloaded bloggers Maxine Clarke and Simonne Michelle-Wells). Koraly participated in the Overland Progressive Writers Masterclass earlier this year. She is also the mother to a young toddler, and her below poem is the first of a series of ‘poeranting’ poems written by Overland Overloaded bloggers.

Koraly will join the Overland Overloaded team again later this week to review Wednesday night’s Overload Allstars at the Northcote Social Club.

A poet is born

You know you are a poet,
when you’re writing poems
at five.

The words are sewn together,
by an uncontrollable thread
of insanity.

Your child says her first words,
and the notepad is there
but you’re not.

There is banging of your head
against a computer
with internal bleeding.

Words slice at your craft
like stop chasing dreams and
onirevese.

And words sound egotistical
like Papa, afise me
I’ve got talent.

Then there are those looks
like whose gonna care what you say?
and get a real job.

And one has to contemplate
slicing the trembling hand
to fucking stop

but the thoughts still rhyme.