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 8 December 2023 · Fiction Fiction | The Victims Emma Jayne Willson Every morning I checked the Director’s calendar to ensure there were no meeting clashes, no opportunity for her polished façade to slip. Once I’d made the mistake of booking two meetings without leaving ten minutes between them, thus forcing her to run across the sprawling campus. She arrived late for her meeting with the Provost, […] First published in Overland Issue 228 7 December 20238 December 2023 · Food Righteous appetites: the dilemmas of the ethical omnivore’s diet Jaimee Edwards The pastoral is our setting for the good life that puts the 'ethical' in 'ethical sausage'. The websites for small-scale farms and ethical meat butchers around the world look like brochures for retirement living. Together, the happy animals, their conscientious handlers, and ceremonial butchers form a picture of aligned values.
