Published 12 February 201015 February 2010 · Main Posts They tell me I should go to rehab, I say: no prose, no prose, no prose. Maxine Beneba Clarke there will be no poetry on the overland blog we will not be able to haiku or rhyme couplets or upload audio there will be no sonnets or free verse or fixed verse we will not hip hop or scatterbug or freestyle your ears will not be challenged by it your minds will not be stretched by it your heart will not be pierced by it poetry will not be blogged here will not be blogged here will not be blogged here we will not be able to slam up or slam down or slam around poetry will not be whispered spoken or written you will not be able to comment on it criticise it or download it we will not reach you by webcam or twitter note or youtube post we will not be able to howl in pentameter iambicly amble or laughingly limerick poetry will not raise your spirit check your conscience or musically align your ears there will be no poetry there will be no poetry there will be no poetry here 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 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.