Published in Overland Issue 216 Spring 2014 · Uncategorized Editorial Jeff Sparrow children roast in the fires of this terrible century and no love is enough no elegy sufficient That’s regular Overland contributor Alison Croggon in her 1997 poem, ‘Ode to Walt Whitman’. Her words circulated on social media recently, at a time when the powerful seemed to have declared war on children. Half the population of Gaza is under eighteen and, as the world’s fourth largest military unleashed advanced weaponry on a tiny strip of land populated by 1.8 million people, the morgues soon filled with tiny bodies. Closer to home, we learned more details about how the Australian refugee detention centres are slowly sending kids mad. If no elegy is sufficient in this terrible century, why, then, write? Why publish, of all things, a literary journal? This special, expanded edition celebrates sixty years of Overland by asking those questions. It begins with the journalist and activist Laurie Penny revisiting Orwell’s famous essay on writing. It features a selection of editors from around the world explaining what they aim to accomplish with their publications. And it presents an array of essays, stories and poems that seek out to show, in practice, what the written word can achieve. Much has changed in six decades, and, unfortunately, much has not. Today, more than ever, we can see why the fight for the values Overland represents matters so greatly. In her poem, Croggon puts it like this. and truly what is my faith except a stubborn voice casting out its shining length to where I walk alone sick and afraid and unable to accept defeat singing as I was born to Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, broadcaster and Walkley award-winning journalist. He is a former columnist for Guardian Australia, a former Breakfaster at radio station 3RRR, and a past editor of Overland. His most recent book is a collaboration with Sam Wallman called Twelve Rules for Strife (Scribe). He works at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. More by Jeff Sparrow › 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.
