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 1 6 November 2026 · Friday Fiction Headland Harry Goddard He must have still been sore. I could tell from the winces he made as he scooted down the trail. Some unspoken agreement of not hitting other people’s children — and the circumstances of me not being that type of kid — spared me from the same punishment. I was taken to my parents who agreed I would have to work off the damages, and I must have mowed the lawn once, or cleaned the family car. 4 November 2026 · Film MIFF, Minotaur and the politics of maternal reception Alicia Byrnes Maternal labour is, in the terms I’ve set out here, not labour at all. Noisy, unfocused, mobile, perhaps even sleepy — it is an affront to arthouse film viewing and therefore unserious.