Published in Overland Issue 228 Spring 2017 · Uncategorized Languages I Learned in Hell Audrey Molloy i. gown fitting invitation list deckled edge target weight sheath dress seating plan tussy mussy wishing well VIP ii. nuchal translucency recovery room blighted ovum foetal demise just as well genetic abnormality products of conception try again D&C iii. you look tired eating for two cankles varicose vein breech presentation epidural failure just a little snip instrumental birth OMG iv. crunch ’n’ sip working bee nit comb car pool mufti day plantar wart sight words special needs ADD v. children’s ward A&E white blood cell count parent room coffee machine lumbar puncture PICC line no news yet JRA vi. think tank take offline strategic staircase ASAP open the kimono burning platform drill down synergise FYI vii. matrimonial home date of cohabitation pre-marital assets erosion principle section 75(2)(b) without prejudice family law act $550 per hour plus GST viii. Klippan Lack self-assembly flat-pack Ribba Phillips head allen key Ikea thumb G&T ix. post baby body pelvic floor boot camp engage your core girls’ night out similar interests coffee Martini friends with benefits RSV Read the rest of Overland 228 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Audrey Molloy Audrey Molloy was born in Dublin and grew up in Blackwater, County Wexford. She now lives in Sydney, where she works as a medical writer and editor. Her poetry has recently appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, New Shoots Anthology and Cordite. She was shortlisted for the 2016 Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets. More by Audrey Molloy › 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 20 December 202420 December 2024 · Reviews Slippery totalities: appendices on oil and politics in Australia and beyond Scott Robinson Kurmelovs writes at this level of confusion and contradiction for an audience whose unspoken but vaguely progressive politics he takes for granted and yet whose assumed knowledge resembles that of an outraged teenager. There should be a young adult genre of political journalism to accommodate books like this. 19 December 202419 December 2024 · Reviews Reading JH Prynne aloud: Poems 2016-2024 John Kinsella Poems 2016-2024 is a massive, vibrant and immersive collation of JH Prynne’s small press publication across this period. Some would call it a late life creative flourish, a glorious coda, but I don’t see it this way. Rather, this is an accumulation of concerns across a lifetime that have both relied on earlier form work and newly "discovered" expressions of genre that require recasting, resaying, and varying.
