Published 31 August 2009 · Main Posts ha! the blog of my enemy is failing. Maxine Beneba Clarke What better way to introduce you to Overland Overloaded blogger Karen Andrews than with her poem gloating (hypothetically, she assures me) over the failure of an enemy’s blog. The poem was first published on her parenting blogsite and nods to Clive James’ “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered” and to the literary jealousy lurking in us all. The Blog of My Enemy is Failing The blog of my enemy is failing and I celebrate. Gone is the fizz and dapper swagger of awards won and rankings claimed. Your Fitzgeraldean party is over. What good is precocious verve, or the generosity of ‘linky-loving’ be when even the trolls, sniffing the wounds, have left you alone for gamer prey, for other bombs, the Gigli’s of Moveable Type, whose writers’ no amount of self-promotion could surpass their own self-interest. My enemy’s blog, its clean lines and symmetry, now reposes uncomfortably in the reflective rays of Perez’s pink. His undeniable precocity is to be found among ‘Project 365 of cow udders’. His bravery, declared by others when first known himself, his devotion to community, is there amongst “Celebrating Monkfish — They can’t help being ugly”. And (oh, yes) his talent, his talent no amount of photoshopping could ever hope to boost is now a nice match to @Fake_Seth_Godin who promises, “You (only wish you) can be as successful as me.” Now, soon my own blog could fail, though not to the catastrophic extent the failure of my enemy’s blog has managed to achieve, since in my blog’s particular case it will be due to an alexa glitch, or borked Technorati – – merely a temporary error. The quality is irrefutable. But in case such an anomaly were to occur and spoil my mirth, it will be countered nicely by the documentation of this occasion. Open the box and pass me a cigar! For the blog of my enemy is failing and I am dancing. Maxine Beneba Clarke Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian author and slam poet of Afro- Caribbean descent. Her short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the 2015 ABIA Award for Best Literary Fiction and the 2015 Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize. Her memoir, The Hate Race, her poetry collection Carrying the World, and her first children’s book, The Patchwork Bike, will be published by Hachette in late 2016. More by Maxine Beneba Clarke › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.