Published 30 August 200931 August 2009 · Main Posts the kind of poet who… Overland Overloaded Melbourne writer Alec Patric is the first of Overland’s Overload reviewers to be introduced on this blog. Alec has published in many publications, including Going Down Swinging, Etchings and the Blue Dog Poetry Anthology, and was recently part of Overland’s Progressive Writers Masterclass. Here, Alec muses about the kind of poets you’re likely to meet at overland.org.au during Overload. Anonymous Poets The kind of Poet with angry skin and blistered rhymes using words like tattoos, needles for all his i’s who slithers onto stages with ink, spits and sprays out a violence the snakes writhing over his forearms — swell and sway and sing The kind of Poet who is looking for a lion to put her head into, for the mouth to be spacious, clean for running lion dreams of antelope, for lion hunger and jaws but all she ever finds is thoughts like fleas sucking out her words The kind of Poet that wants to change the world one page at a time, one pill at a time one brick at a time, one revolution at a time changing his mind like changing a tire — while driving The kind of Poet who makes everyone laugh who loses herself in that sound, who loses her mind in that silence crashing over her bones after, because the blood is the lie of passion and love alone just gets tired in the shove and pull of her abandoned joke The kind of Poet who learned the Islamic prayers for morning and evening sung the Salah like a Sufi, singing for Mecca in country Victoria living out of his battered van now, a self printed collection of poetry mostly just giving them away to people who believe the Word is Great The kind of Poet who writes herself notes in pen, on the backs of her hands, and her palms are for private messages The kind of Poet with a cultivated air an elegant lion tamer, of precise attention of command and direction, within the cage but beyond bars a whipped and bewildered lion The kind of Poet who sees evil portents and is undone like flying shoelaces, and stumbling blackbirds who drains half empty glasses, and then witnesses in the empty glass an unbearable symbol of optimism Visit Alec’s blog here Overland Overloaded More by Overland Overloaded › 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.