Published in Overland Issue 216 Spring 2014 Uncategorized Goodbye to all that Keri Glastonbury ‘You’re the reason why I’ll move to the city, you’re why I’ll need to leave’ — Sharon Van Etten Driving over Styx Creek, appropriately laden with heavy metal, the TAFE maintaining a cold shoulder, where transgender trainee librarians from Kurri, meet Penny Wong’s ex-speech writer, meet all the dropkicks. Like watching Orange is the New Black thinking there but for the grace of god (& now whenever I think it’s in Pennsatuckey’s accent). The city’s lazily retooled past lives of a near future as I simply reach my nose around the back of my head, the slurry of toxic carcinogens leach from the gasworks, hidden in full public view. Outside parents are waddling their kids to school, and, for a minute there, we could be in the East Village. Seeking neither the uniform distancelessness of the network nor the uniform nearness of suburbia – all the disavowed derelict land, the perfect setting for an eat dirtzian doctorate. Mojo may have long left town but there’s still a few Los Chucos Suaves hiding in the native grasses, the world inside Clyde Street. Keri Glastonbury Keri Glastonbury is a poet, essayist and senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle. She is also former poetry editor of Overland. More by Keri Glastonbury 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 24 March 202324 March 2023 War Conga line to Armageddon: the rush to get us into a war with China Ben Brooker It shouldn’t need spelling out that Australia could not win a war with China in any sense that matters, even with the backing of the US and its allies. At best, such a victory would be a Pyrrhic one. At worst, we would be so utterly humiliated as to not even know what kind of defeat had been inflicted upon us. First published in Overland Issue 228 23 March 2023 Trans rights Why gender essentialism is a white supremacist ideology Maddison Stoff The idea that these neo-Nazis are just ‘cosplayers’, rather than the local version of an international and decades-long attempt by numerous lone wolves and paramilitary groups to seize control of multiple countries, is too dangerous to seriously contemplate. The better question might be: why do so many anti-trans rights activists, who often see themselves as left-wing or self-describe as feminists, tolerate or downplay the presence of Nazis in their circles? And, just as importantly, why do neo-Nazis show up to support them?
