The desire to construct climate as ordered and predictable can be understood as existing within the geological philosophy of gradualism. Because climate is ordered, predictable and expected, it assumes a disguise of naturalness, which allows it to disappear as a site of interrogation, in much the same way that notions of gender, sexuality and race have done historically.

If you were in the Western Hemisphere, and you walked into a room full of strangers talking about Katrina, Harvey, Mitchell or Maria, you might know who they were talking about. If you were from Taiwan, you might introduce Fanapi; if you were several centuries old, you could talk about San Francisco.

Mullock heaps pockmark the bush and my home rests uneasily on wounded land. Land that holds memory, holds remnants: derivative of remains—all that is left, but also that which continues to exist. Djaara, the local Dja Dja Wurrung people, call it ‘Upside Down Country’, because what should have been left below, now sits on top.

At the old Heathcote Mental Reception Home, Martu artist Curtis Taylor installs his art. He has erected a bow shelter in the middle of the main room and spread sand and pieces of broken crab on the polished floorboards. Behind a locked door in a white room, he has piled bark on a metal hospital bed. In the flickering light, it looks like piled clothing or shed skin. This place is also known as Goolugatup, and Kooyagoordup.

Last year marked the fiftieth anniversary of Wake in Fright, one of Australian cinema’s most unsettling horror movies, as well as one of its most perceptive works of national self-interrogation. Adapted from Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel of the same name and directed by Ted Kotcheff of later First Blood fame, Wake in Fright has attained a semi-mythical status firstly as a ‘lost movie’

You get in early to the Department of Prosperity and Initiative, which you’ve been doing since the restructure of 2018. As government departments go, it’s nondescript. It works in the way that gumboots work. Not pretty but it does the job. You arrive at seven, card swipe, and in through the front, up the lifts, […]

Refugee Football League trial match at Linkbelt Oval, Nauru. Young men in official RFL Draft guernseys play with ferocious intensity, a cloud of phosphate dust billowing from the grassless surface. Leaning on the rusted boundary fence, Dirk is just one of the dozens of talent scouts closely watching the action.

It was on him again. Mick could feel it on his skin and this time it was even over the sheets and pillow. He lay perfectly still. If he moved it would get over Janelle. The last thing he wanted was to wake Janelle at midnight in another panic. With his eyes firmly closed, Mick tried to imagine himself as a small-to-medium-size car, moving slowly through an automated car wash.

Find it. Kill it. The thought has been bothering me and my fingers fumble, working back and forth on the mariner shell necklace. Walking home along the beach, I pull my coat tightly about myself, keeping the wind from probing the exposed skin of my neck.

Words collected from ‘It’s so hip to be black’ by Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun, 15 April 2009. Meet now Wiradjuri Country. Auburn and charmingly freckled Country. Fair open air and Swallow Country. Take-me-as-I-am naked Country.

They argued over the correct way to drain the sink. A chocolate cake buckled under the strain of their indifference to one another. To put it another way, my coffee came a little late—the kitchen was open and large slices of carrot toppled off the chopping board stopping-up doors that had yet to inherit knobs.

dream’s letterhead lies exhausted in the recycling bin    someone is so awake to the moment    the black opulence of the room at 4am    a hello new day screen lights up    bulletins of hydrated

I lost sleep last night—so tired my head is a potato. My life was always art, but work made it dirt. Is life always dirt? I lost my night working potatoes. A tired head, but my last sleep was art. My part is in. A new bearing from which thick plants bud. Much depression arises from the underground.

For a while I pick the glass Out of her hair, which is gorgeous—Ombre peach and gold. She holds my hand and won’t agree. I leave her in front of the tobacconist, Full of the language of murder.

cull Monday CULL barb drinks burden sass MONDAY mouths burn BARBURDENODE DRINKSASSYRUPS node syrups MOUTHSHOTROPES shot nooses tropes’ suds BURNOOSESUDS gunned rope SUNGUNNEDRUM BESTIROPEPARCH sung bestir NOWISETICLEAVE drum eparch

as if numbers can measure how dark immigrant skin is dark enough to be blue under strobe lights carnivorous jellyfish dirt-brown blood an ignition of nightmares & sweat

Sitting on a bench in Central Park, it’s a Friday afternoon in spring and I’m thinking thoughts in waves, like: just because she’s masc doesn’t mean she’ll top you and perhaps I’d be happier if I was eating a canelé.

In the time since our last edition, the Victorian Aboriginal community has lost two of its most prominent Elders, Uncle Archie Roach and Uncle Jack Charles. Both were survivors of a brutal regime of state-sanctioned removal and assimilation that continues to tear apart Aboriginal families today. Both will be sorely missed from the community in which Overland lives and works, and remembered forever for their compassion, resilience and leadership.

I try not to think too much as I step out of my car and taste rain in the air. Sweet, dewy freshness against my lips. The January atmosphere is hot, harsh, but the Category 4 up north has sent its tails down our way. Thick grey clouds and angry short periods of rain, with just a sprinkle of wind.