In this highly anticipated new issue, we encounter brilliant examples of what writing can do in a hypernormal time – whether that's Benjamin Gready on the absurdity of fieldwork on land under active occupation or Zahid Gamieldien's short story about a dancing rat who finds itself enmeshed in systems too shadowy to be true. But, as with the emotional cycles of resistance, hope and snark are features too. Dan Hogan considers the lawn as a class obsession, and π.ο. asks a question: why people hate poetry? We also read about a rakhasa family who passes on wisdom to their young kin, a story by Shefali Mathew. And you’ll find new poetry by Eli McLean, Fiona Hile and Sol Chan, among others, as well as a comic by Safdar Ahmed, plus heaps more. Co-editors Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk write in the editorial, "Writing always matters, but it matters most directly in the face of this kind of thuggish assault on language, our first and last commons. We can’t let the bastards have it.”
Eunice Andrada is a Filipina poet and educator living on unceded Gadigal Land. Her debut poetry collection Flood Damages (2018) won the Anne Elder Award and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry and the Dame Mary Gilmore Award. She is the recipient of the John Marsden-Hachette Australia Prize (2014) and the Australian Poetry & NAHR Eco-Poetry Fellowship (2018). Her poetry is currently featured in the Museum of Sydney's exhibition A Thousand Words.
