Published in Overland Issue 240 Spring 2020 · Uncategorized I woke up this morning Omar Sakr and asked the bird if it feels trapped by its song, by its language being known only as melody. Its eloquent speech ‘my home is endless and dying’ reduced to piping notes, a shrill ringtone. I am talking to myself. The birds are gone. This is the problem of poetry. We siren our warnings and the world drowns to the sound of our beautiful voices. I would not want it any other way. I love a good dirge. And I am tired of being told to claim my joy. What am I to do with happiness? Where on earth can happiness reside? An astonishing number of my family are dead. An astonishing number of my family are alive. I woke up for this morning song. Read the rest of Overland 240 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Omar Sakr Omar Sakr is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections, These Wild Houses (Cordite, 2017) and The Lost Arabs (UQP, 2019) which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry. His debut novel, Son of Sin (2022) is out now. More by Omar Sakr › 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 17 January 202517 January 2025 · rape culture Neil Gaiman and the political economy of rape Emmy Rakete The interactions between Gaiman, Palmer, Pavlovich, and the couple’s young child are all outlined in Shapiro’s article. There is, though, another figure in the narrative whom the article does not name. Auckland city itself is a silent participant in the abuse that Pavlovich suffered. Auckland is not just the place where these things happen to have occurred: this is a story about Auckland. 20 December 202420 December 2024 · Reviews Slippery totalities: appendices on oil and politics in Australia and beyond Scott Robinson Kurmelovs writes at this level of confusion and contradiction for an audience whose unspoken but vaguely progressive politics he takes for granted and yet whose assumed knowledge resembles that of an outraged teenager. There should be a young adult genre of political journalism to accommodate books like this.
