Published in Overland Issue Poetry in Lockdown · Poetry The new place Jazz Money now children, it’s time to begin the rotations I. yellow light step upon the timber floor you remember this place practice recite along the line you know this homely institution II. the body makes the mark can you feel the cotton in your hand? touch the first sense haven’t found the words yet the form is pre-lingual breathing, drying the shape begins to solidify III. tasting to learn the world everything here is to be shared IV. you recognise running through a world full of knees, stiff fabrics unknown faces the skirt above locates you the caretaker is soft the touch is childhood memory the print is cultural memory we’ve commenced your phase of lingual expression everything to plan it will continue for now, you are safe V. reaching for the glove soft (but with a slap) the flesh which holds the touch yields speaks to the hand alone without the body how fast can you run? VI. group time! to understand this part, we must mark it the concept of time learn this is abstract we quantify it to qualify it you’re beginning to be institutionalised it’s not so bad though the new societal reality VII. quantifying memory repetition helps repetition helps move to fairytale to learn this part to forget what came before see these pumpkins (you may have to look hard) they’re hiding in your cultural memory (remember?) grotesque goldilocks all wrapped up in scarf and cloth the old ways will be overcome VIII. patchwork hands in movement and always a task to do IX. are you feeling big now? the dough has turned to bread time to wash away the play hard grit soap does it remind you of the caretakers pink hands? (so different to your own) (forbidden thoughts) X. we could not feel what had been held the mark upon the sand absent form remembers speaks of then (precognition) to now memory creates the object a residue left behind and unlearning is a long journey home 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 Jazz Money Jazz Money is an award-winning poet, filmmaker and educator of Wiradjuri heritage. Her poetry has been published widely across Australia and reimagined as murals, visual art and video art. Jazz is grateful to live on the beautiful sovereign lands of the Darug and Gundungurra nations. More by Jazz Money 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 15 May 202326 May 2023 · Poetry Poetry | Two poems by Ouyang Yu Ouyang Yu You have to do it badly. If it is poetry, even more so, because there is no because. If you write like you were the best in the world, you are the worst because you pretend too hard. Too harsh, too. Why do you want to be the best? Is that because you are a lack or there is a lack in you that you feel like filling up all the time? Even when you are named the best, does that mean anything? 1 First published in Overland Issue 228 21 April 20232 May 2023 · Poetry Poetry can already be free Ender Başkan There’s a regime of logic that we can call Australia, that we can say on many fronts is also a fiction. Any poem that meets Australia within its logic, taking it at face value, will be boring and it might be competent. If you use an AI app, it will definitely be competent AND boring materially, but conceptually it’ll be amazing, in that it met evil (management speak/the invisible hand/terra nullius) with cunning, with another kind evil—amoral, not immoral.
