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.”
OVERLAND 192 spring 2008 ISBN 978-0-9775171-9-0 published 31 August 2008
Foggy Windows
You can’t preserve love behind foggy windows believe me when your back is finally turned she steps out shakes herself down does her lipstick and walks away perhaps with an insouciant swing to the hips that would hurt if you insisted on looking back if you regretted not shackling her in your car forever but you don’t want to spend the rest of your life blubbering in torn pieces like Orpheus or tasting a toxic dollop of Lot’s Wife on congealing cold eggs so you don’t fight it you don’t fight love’s right to wind down your precious foggy windows.
© Dorothy Porter Overland 192 – spring 2008, p. 77
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