Published in Overland Issue 223 Winter 2016 · Uncategorized Their talk Ouyang Yu Just around the street corner the sky heard The man say to the woman But that’s what this place is like They don’t trust friendship They don’t need it And the tree whom the two had just gone past heard The woman say They have their own people clustering around them And that’s more than enough And they don’t need any more people The street, meanwhile, let them walk the walk and talk The talk Without making a reply, exactly the way a street Behaves There were other things they talked about Such as their mutual agreement that They get used to the generally accepted cultural Segregation and their newly bred sense of aplomb And phlegm As for other things that might hurt if let out The sky, the tree and the trees, as well as the street Were willing to keep mum about So downtrodden by the wheels, the wind or the wings Like the two With no hopes of ever changing the Colour Read the rest of Overland 223 – If you liked this article, please subscribe or donate. Ouyang Yu Ouyang Yu is an award-winning poet and novelist. His first novel, The Eastern Slope Chronicle, won the 2004 South Australian Festival Award for Innovation in Writing. His third novel, The English Class, won the 2011 NSW Premier’s Award, and his fourteenth collection of poetry, Terminally Poetic (2020), won the Judith Wright Calanthe Award in the 2021 Queensland Literary Awards. He was shortlisted for the Writer’s Prize in the 2021 Melbourne Prize for Literature and he won the Fellowship from Creative Australia in 2021. His ninth novel, The Sun at Eight or Nine, was published in March 2025. More by Ouyang Yu › 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 8 May 202611 May 2026 · Nakata Brophy Prize The 2026 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers (Poetry) Editorial Team Please follow this link to enter the prize. Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 […] 7 May 20267 May 2026 · Gaming Weaponised play: are loot boxes pokies for kids? Tom Gurn In the last decade, chance mechanics have been increasingly exploited by the video game industry to attract players, including very young ones. And while the federal government is clearly aware of the risks, it really isn’t clear what the right step forward is.
