Published in Overland Issue 218 Autumn 2015 · Uncategorized Be were: third place, Judith Wright Poetry Prize Kia Groom tonight the pigment will rise through your skin, form in fawn formations deer: your stockinged shanks hang now from half- open window & you slough off loose shoe it was a slow summer but now i crown you in the backseat: destructive diadem nestled in the thorns of your hair, stuck in a swollen wound that seeps a stream of blood i take it, what i’m owed, & crickets kiss your split lips with their sound: oh, whittled girlhood oh, crust of mud that shapes a foot to hoof. the sun sets on your thighs. you stumble out & eyes abandon pigment: sclera floods dark oil & in the road deer: you break open your insides burst with fur i want to plunge my hand inside again & taste beast coronation it was a slow summer but now i pick fine hairs from between teeth & watch you frail shake on roadside gore & glisten of damp girl & dearest that’s the thing, with men we always forget, when hunting for blood, first: flesh. Kia Groom Kia Groom grew up in Perth and is slated to graduate from the University of New Orleans in May, with an MFA in poetry. She is founding editor of Quaint Magazine, dedicated to subversive work from female-identified and non-binary writers. Her work has appeared in Going Down Swinging, Westerly and Cordite. She is online at www.kiagroom.com, and tweets at @whodreamedit. More by Kia Groom 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 8 June 2023 · Technology ‘AI’ and the quest to redefine workers’ autonomy Rob Horning The phrase artificial intelligence is a profoundly ideological way to characterise automation technologies. It is an expression of the general tendency to discuss technologies as though they were ‘powerful’ in and of themselves—as if power weren’t a relative measure of the different capacities and prerogatives of social classes. First published in Overland Issue 228 7 June 2023 · Housing Taking the Rat King on tour Murdoch Stephens Late last year, Renters United and I joined together to make a new version of Rat King Landlord that would be free to renters. I had been aware of Renters United for about four years when the book came out and I loved what they were up to. Whenever the weird logic of property speculation got air time, Renters United would be there talking about the real impact on people. We were faced with two challenges: where to get the funds to make a few thousand copies, and how to make sure the copies didn’t just sit in our garages getting damp.
