Published in Overland Issue 226 Autumn 2017 Uncategorized Equal first place: MANY GIRLS WHITE LINEN Alison Whittaker no mist no mystery no hanging rock only many girls white linen men with guns and harsher things white women amongst gums white linen starch’er things later plaques will mark this war nails peeling back floor scrubbing back blak chores white luxe hangnails hanging more than nails while no palm glowing paler later plaques will mark this sick linen’s rotten cotton genes later plaques will track the try to bleed lineage dry its banks now flood a new ancestor, Ordeal, plaits this our blood if evil is banal how more boring is suffering evil two bloodlines from it how more raw rousing horrifying is the plaque that marks something else rolling on from this place a roll of white linen dropped on slight incline amongst gums collecting grit where blak girls hang nails hang out picking them hangnails Read the rest of Overland 226 If you enjoyed this prizewinning poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Alison Whittaker Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi multitasker from the floodplains of Gunnedah in NSW. Between 2017–2018, she was a Fulbright scholar at Harvard Law School. Both her debut poetry collection, Lemons in the Chicken Wire, and her recent collection, Blakwork, were published by Magabala Books. More by Alison Whittaker 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?
