256 Spring 2024 Buy this issue Overland 256 is the third issue in a suite of four special editions dedicated to commemorating 70 years of Overland. Inside its pages you'll find: Daniel Browning on the politics of memory, Antonia Pont on impatience, Sarah Wehbe on Palestinian fury and joy, and a special editorial by our departing poetry editor Toby Fitch. There's also new short fiction from Rowan MacDonald, Bethany Lalor and Amalia Stone, and new poetry from Josie Suzanne, Tim Loveday, Lulu Houdini and more. Issue Contents Features Plant hatred in our hearts Sarah Wehbe Impatient politics & urgency beyond this present Antonia Pont Dust Lilli Hayes Résonances Daniel Browning Fiction You’ll find what you need in the Gilgan op shop Amalia Stone Daryl’s wombat farm Rowan MacDonald Paradise Bethany Lalor Poetry Coburg//Gnosticism Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne Exchanges Alex Sutcliffe incantations Lucy Norton the most democratic artform Tim Loveday Brink Kate Lilley I am born, my gender two swans Lily Holloway Queueing to be pilloried Michael Farrell speed, a pastoral Ruby Connor Editorial A farewell and a poem from poetry editor Toby Fitch, 2015–2025 Toby Fitch Browse the issue: Features Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Palestine Plant hatred in our hearts Sarah Wehbe Let the recent events in Gaza stand as a reminder that even after seventy-six years, the Palestinian people are still here. We share our stories like the olive tree holding firm to its roots. We remember our villages’ names long after they are wiped clean from your maps. Our joy, sadness, and fury paint an image that cannot be erased. This is what it means to be Palestinian; we are here, we tell our stories, and as long as that is true, there is hope. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Politics Impatient politics & urgency beyond this present Antonia Pont There’s a famous Paul Kelly lyric that visits me in moments when I need to meet my own unwisdoms about time — when I’m grappling with how long things take. I’ll let you bump into it in your own time — maybe in the queue at the self-service checkouts, maybe at a house party, maybe in a taxi. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Work Dust Lilli Hayes In March of 2008, Greg Hayes, aged fifty-nine, was being transported home from a hospice, granting him his final wish to die in his bed. As the ambulance pulled into his tree-lined driveway on the South Coast of New South Wales, his ravaged lungs gave way. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Art Résonances Daniel Browning The politics of memory — who and what we remember, who and what we forget — and the nexus between power and those events which, no matter how disconnected, are constructed as a nation’s “history”: these themes echo strongly in the anticolonial work of Swiss-Haitian artist Sasha Huber. Fiction Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Fiction You’ll find what you need in the Gilgan op shop Amalia Stone There are two op shops in Gilgan. They sell one black dress. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Fiction Daryl’s wombat farm Rowan MacDonald I wear Chloe’s pink gumboots when shovelling wombat shit at Daryl Cunningham’s place. It’s cube-shaped, their shit. Stops it rolling away. They use it to communicate with other wombats, mark their territory. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Fiction Paradise Bethany Lalor Dad said Paradise was named after some old tourist who wandered in on one of the only sunny days of the year and couldn’t believe the sight. Poetry Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry Coburg//Gnosticism Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne The cockatoos are cameras / with legs. They weigh washing lines / down the middle. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry Exchanges Alex Sutcliffe Because Potatohead is free entry / 5 Eyes supported Suharto. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry incantations Lucy Norton they said they hated us and / they wanted genocide to continue / we said we love each other / and we want freedom / we said we love each other and / deserve life, miraculous and average Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry the most democratic artform Tim Loveday In response to Richard Flanagan who called writing “the most democratic artform” during a panel at the 2023 Sydney Writers’ Festival. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry Brink Kate Lilley I am a woman of the last century / a connoisseur of cupboards and compartments / answers reversed, a tangle for trembling ears Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry I am born, my gender two swans Lily Holloway When I am born I bleed at the edges / like a painting in the rain. The midwife / is overbooked, the umbilical cord wraps / around my neck, an ambulance rushes me / from one hospital to another. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry Queueing to be pilloried Michael Farrell Create from death, that’s the only way. A series of North Italian film directors travelled on a boat / to Sicily, where they wandered, amazed, and treated the locals like ground birds. Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · Poetry speed, a pastoral Ruby Connor last time i lived here i was working the / wheat bins out at salmon gums that’s where / nana grew up before boarding school before / perth but i was never a farm kid only a / townie Editorial Published in Overland Issue 256 Spring 2024 · A farewell and a poem from poetry editor Toby Fitch, 2015–2025 Toby Fitch Overland is committed to the political project that is poetry, a project that must go beyond diversity quotas, empty acknowledgments, and pat didacticism. And it must decry the kind of depoliticised lyric poem that dominates Australian poetry. And so, any poetry editor of Overland will receive their fair share of conflict. 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