Published in Overland Issue 207 Winter 2012 · Uncategorized To Nina Pam Brown once upon a time 19 hundred 68 is over is thin politics dashed, disconnected, diachronicity indicating technology’s noisy cataclysm & flashing strobe boxed in a dusty garage 19 hundred 98 is over is how to scratch the future when it’s gone, thinking pastness is up ahead 20 oh 8 is over is atmospheric brooding, interpretation rules the day, the weeks, years, the centuries sliding in to hide beneath the warmth of flock and shoddy, ruffling dust in the circuitry 20 ten is nothing else – laser beam a pilot’s eyes, upstage an apocalypse, my ten cent technophile you’re in my echo chamber, my feedback loop 20 twelve is corporately social, filtered, nothing deviant here, hop away now, recharge, unencumbered & unapologetic Nina – an entry in a ledger, all’s big data Pam Brown Pam Brown has published many chapbooks, pamphlets and full collections of poetry, most recently Stasis Shuffle (Hunter Publishers, 2021). She lives in a south Sydney suburb on reclaimed swampland on Gadigal Country. More by Pam Brown › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 14 February 202514 February 2025 · Poetry 9 to 5 Dave Drayton volunteer to clown / undermine an award / construct to heave / interfere in class / dismantle if civil / disregard no cause / freelance at ennui 1 13 February 202514 February 2025 · Reviews Echoing of the white gaze in Evie Wyld’s The Echoes Karen Wyld Wyld’s creation of voiceless-nameless-lifeless Blak people in The Echoes serves no narrative purpose. This novel is not truth-telling of invasion and occupation, and it does not envision justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Instead of rejecting or confronting lazy literary tropes and colonial-style narratives, the author has erased Blak voices, bodies, histories and futures, adding her own voice to a never-ending echo of white-gazed literature when silence would have been better.
