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 1 6 November 2026 · Friday Fiction Headland Harry Goddard He must have still been sore. I could tell from the winces he made as he scooted down the trail. Some unspoken agreement of not hitting other people’s children — and the circumstances of me not being that type of kid — spared me from the same punishment. I was taken to my parents who agreed I would have to work off the damages, and I must have mowed the lawn once, or cleaned the family car. 4 November 2026 · Film MIFF, Minotaur and the politics of maternal reception Alicia Byrnes Maternal labour is, in the terms I’ve set out here, not labour at all. Noisy, unfocused, mobile, perhaps even sleepy — it is an affront to arthouse film viewing and therefore unserious.
