Published in Overland Issue 202 Autumn 2011 · Writing / Main Posts The Influence of Lorca in the Outback Michael Farrell Where they once ate camel grease (and before that I don’t know), they now eat moon butter. Where they once drank electric guitar (and sometimes acoustic guitar) they now drink lightning. They talk about the Spanish Civil War as if it happened just around there, just over there. The Outback’s too large a temple for a Christ. They’re always writing poems about the hot snow of suffering – or odes to roosters. These are the reports we hear. They go looking for bones to talk to, like Lorca was a character in Hamlet. Of course, it could just be a living analogy: a clinamen in attempts at Indigenous and European reconciliation. At one school in South Australia, the girls were so taken with the House of Bernarda Alba that it became a cult, enacted day and night, its themes and narrative infecting the girls’ mothers and other women. There was much wearing of black (or green, with straw) of stylised repressive and rebellious gesture (but mercifully no shooting). It’s said that elderly Aboriginal women would suddenly run into the street saying they wanted to be married and have lots of children. The play had become a feminist masque, and spread across state borders. In one town in New South Wales the whole male population donned Southern European mourning drag in order to not be left out. But this attracted too much media, and the women all went into the hills until the men put their jeans back on. The many graves of Lorca scattered throughout the desert and in oblique spots on towns’ outskirts have become shared sacred places. Even in the cities it’s known the Outback is no monoculture; whispers have been heard of resistance, especially by men who find Lorca too feminine. It’s said that, here and there, the influence of Rimbaud is beginning to show. That the Paris Commune is referred to as a local moment; while many teenagers wear wrist bandages, and travel the continent on foot. Still others are living more reclusive lives in the style of Dickinson: collecting native flowers, wearing white, and making packets of poetry. Michael Farrell Originally from Bombala, NSW, Michael Farrell is a Melbourne-based poet, with a collage practice which can be seen on instagram @limechax. Googlecholia is out now from Giramondo. More by Michael Farrell › 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 4 October 202418 October 2024 · Main Posts Announcing the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers 2024 longlist Editorial Team Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 and now in its ninth year, recognises the talent of young Indigenous writers across Australia. 16 August 202416 August 2024 · Poetry pork lullaby Panda Wong but an alive pig / roots in the soil /turning it over / with its snout / softening the ground / is this a hymn