Published 13 December 200913 December 2009 · Main Posts How poetry ruined my life, episode 4 Tara Mokhtari Does anybody else get literary hangover? You know, when you finish a major piece of writing and you get sick/exhaustion/brainlessness/depressed immediately after for a period of about two weeks? When I was a playwright, I’d unvaryingly get struck down with tonsillitis the day after every closing night. I just finished writing the last chapter of my verse novel. My studio is filled with late DVD rentals and OK magazines; the TV has been on rather a lot. I’ve discovered 2 for 1 packets of Doritos at the local servo and my couch has developed a bum-shaped indent that wasn’t there before. Is this me burning out? Or am I just in recovery mode? On the upside, the new Ashbery is bliss, like I’m walking around his streets with him every morning after my coffee and before my regular writing session. My poetry feels his influence, the lines are unabashedly growing longer, caesura are breaking the rhythm, there’s a meandering balance evolving in the stuff I’ve written since picking up the book. Lowell sits beside the bed, waiting for me to get to him. And I will. If you want an example of my latest Ashbery inspired poems, go to: http://taramokhtari.wordpress.com Tara Mokhtari Tara Mokhtari is a Persian-Australian poet and screenwriter based in New York. She is the author of The Bloomsbury Introduction to Creative Writing and Anxiety Soup. More by Tara Mokhtari › 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 28 March 202428 March 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. First published in Overland Issue 228 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.