Published in Overland Issue Poetry in Lockdown · Uncategorized Poetry in Lockdown Toby Fitch and Melody Paloma In the first half of 2020, Overland received a small grant to help the magazine provide writing and publishing opportunities during the pandemic lockdown, part of a broader scheme by Creative Victoria to save the arts sector when so many jobs and gigs completely disappeared for so many artists. ‘Poetry in Lockdown’ is one outcome of this—a standalone poetry special issue containing new work by twelve poets from across Australia. In commissioning these new works we imposed no theme on the poets. However, with the pandemic as background to all our lives, it is impossible not to read the poems in that context. Collating these poems has been a salve for us. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have. Eunice Andrada — kulani Tony Birch — Waiting for a train with Thelma Plum Andrew Brooks — Excerpt from ‘salt’ Mark Cayanan — Stillbirths wrapped in newsprint Michael Farrell — Leaves to the imagination Adalya Nash Hussein — October monthly Neika Lehman — The well Jazz Money — The new place Leah Muddle — A spiral (or certain themes revisited) Emily Stewart — Sky updates / blue platform Dženana Vucic — 500 words towards feeling: or, all my poems become war poems Panda Wong — Cemeteries on google earth: a suite of poems Read the rest of Poetry in Lockdown, edited by Toby Fitch and Melody Paloma If you enjoyed this special edition, subscribe and receive a year’s worth of print issues, the online magazine, special editions and discounted entry to our literary competitions Toby Fitch Toby Fitch is Overland’s poetry editor, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Sydney, and the poet behind Rawshock, Bloomin’ Notions, Where Only the Sky had Hung Before and, most recently, Sydney Spleen. He is the editor of the poetry anthologies Best of Australian Poems 2021 (co-edited with Ellen van Neerven) and Groundswell: The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New & Emerging Poets 2007–2020. More by Toby Fitch › Melody Paloma Melody Paloma is a poet and researcher based in Naarm. She is a MFA candidate at UNSW and the author of Some Days (SOd, 2018) and In Some Ways Dingo (Rabbit, 2017). More by Melody Paloma › 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 22 November 202422 November 2024 · Fiction A map of underneath Madeleine Rebbechi They had been tangled together like kelp from the age of fourteen: sunburned, electric Meg and her sidekick Ruth the dreamer, up to all manner of sinister things. So said their parents; so their teachers reported when the two girls were found down at the estuary during a school excursion, whispering to something scaly wriggling in the reeds. 21 November 202421 November 2024 · Fiction Whack-a-mole Sheila Ngọc Phạm We sit in silence a few more moments as there is no need to talk further; it is the right place to end. There is more I want to know but we had revisited enough of the horror for one day. As I stood up to thank Bác Dzũng for sharing his story, I wished I could tell him how I finally understood that Father’s prophecy would never be fulfilled.
