Published in Overland Issue 239 Winter 2020 Poetry Devonian Penelope Leyland In the hours of the tide’s chill retreat the bubbler crabs redraw the atlas. Pearls of sand spread and reach in strands the length of the beach, agreeing the coastlines of new continents, tracking minute deltas and dotted bays, pricking out the contours of mountain chains, the bare veins of rivers, and featureless oceans on parching, windswept foundations. Twice daily the sea sweeps its quick, careless palm over creation. Read the rest of Overland 239 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Penelope Leyland Penelope Layland is a Canberra poet. Her most recent book, Things I’ve thought to tell you since I saw you last, was short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize in the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. More by Penelope Leyland 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 16 December 202225 January 2023 Poetry Poetry | Wombats shit candy Michael Farrell To avoid treading on a snake, I stepped on a land mine. Did this really happen, in my dream? No. Is it a fiction, then? Yes and no. The time I spend looking for socks is insignificant: lie, irony, or philosophy? Wombats shit candy. Joke – hallucination? This is in fact a truth claim. My poems: litanies of truth claims. 1 First published in Overland Issue 228 14 December 202225 January 2023 Reviews The moral risk of taking things too seriously: on Gareth Morgan’s When A Punk Becomes A Spunk Elese Dowden In his review of Lucy Van’s The Open, Gareth Morgan writes that Van writes 'against the impulse to ponder dutifully about the sins of the past and present.' This fucked me up for some time. What is it to ponder dutifully? But perhaps more importantly, how do we ponder in a way that's more … metal?
