15 September 2009 Main Posts poets holiday Overland Overloaded Here it is: the last post of our Overland Overloaded coverage. Tomorrow, the Overland blog will be back as it was…or maybe it never will be. Thankyou to Overland and Overload for your faith in the concept. May the relationship grow. Us Overloaders have loved it, and we hope to be back again next year. Thankyou also to the many people who’ve been interviewed, who have visited, commented and reviewed. You are too large an army to name. To finish, Poets Holiday, a poem by Sandon Macleod which I heard read by Melbourne poet, and founder of Overload Steve Smart at the Spinning Room some months back. I was struck, at the time, not only by the poem but by Smart’s heartfelt delivery of it: the weight behind every word. Steve writes: Poets Holiday was written during amidst the chaos of organising the Overload Poetry Festival in its first couple of years (this was 2003 if I recall), running the Poets Club in Collingwood (and worrying about the mortgage on the space that housed it, where we also lived), editing and publishing Deadline poetry street-press, writing and performing our own poetry and trying to have a life outside poetry at the same time. I remember Sandy being very pleased with this poem, somewhat ironically, and particularly getting a chuckle out of the last line. She was a serious poet, but she had a wicked sense of humour. Poets Holiday It’s the great escape from poetry just one day off we’re not going out to any readings and we’ll get: where were you? but that’s probably better than late again and we’re not visiting any poets and we’re not going to talk about poetry, or poets, or places where poetry is read or festivals we might organise, or readings we might run. We’re having a day off from poetry and poets bitching about other poets and poets getting pissed with other poets and giving each other bad advice and boasting and bullshitting as poets do. We’re having a day off from poetry. We’re catching a train as far as one will go – to Cairns or maybe Perth or anywhere you don’t need so many clothes and the rain, if there is any, is warm and like a next morning shower rather than that cold rain that sits in your shoes and fucks your cigarette papers. We’re having a day off from poetry and we’re not going to sit by the sea and write wave poems about sex or skin poems about love. We’re not going to write poems about poetry. We’re not going to write poems at all – not poems or prose or even words. We’re not taking pens or books or any paper and we’re going to rip our train tickets so we can’t write on the back of those. We’re having a day off from poetry and we’re going to lie by a river with crocodiles in it and you’re going to lie on one bank and I’ll lie on the other ‘cos you’re a fucking poet! -Sandon Mcleod 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 11 November 202211 November 2022 Main Posts On the last day of Subscriberthon, our amazing online editor gives you one last (very good) reason to subscribe Editorial team What's in store for the last day of Subscriberthon? First published in Overland Issue 228 10 November 202210 November 2022 Main Posts On the second-last day of Subscriberthon, our favourite editor-duo give you reason #1002 to subscribe to Overland Editorial team What's in store for the second-last day of Subscriberthon?