Overland 254 is the first in a set of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. This issue also launches a new design and format by Common Room Editions, inspired by Overland’s trove of radical literature spanning from 1954 to today. Andrew Brooks and Astrid Lorange consider the asymmetrical responses to two events: the wearing of keffiyehs by three cast members during the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, and, on the same day in the US, the shooting of three Palestinian men wearing keffiyehs. Jeff Sparrow uncovers the Sydney Herald’s legacy of Terra Nullius, and Daniel Lopez writes on Marx, Meredith and the festival as an inversion of modern life.
Sachem Parkin-Owens is an eighteen-year-old Aboriginal and African-American poet. His Indigenous ties come from Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), where his family currently reside and have for multiple generations. He is also an African-American man from Tampa, Florida. Sachem grew up listening to stories from his grandmother, aunties, uncles, mum and dad about experiences they and his ancestors have been through. Sachem sees himself as a vessel for his peoples’ stories, meaning he feels his ancestors speak through his poetry as he writes.
