Daily Archives: 17 February 2018

Jacinda Woodhead (editor), Overland 229 (Summer 2017)

My blog post about Overland 228 ended with a lament that I had lost my copy before I could finish reading it. To my surprise and delight, a couple of days after my blog post went up, I received a replacement copy in the mail with a friendly note from Jacinda Woodhead. I don’t know what pleased me more, the kindness of the gift or the fact that someone on Overland‘s staff had read my post all the way through. (I realise just now that I didn’t write to thank her. Better late than never: Thank you, Jacinda, especially for the chance to read Jennifer Mills’ conversation with Peter Carey.)

There’s lots of good stuff in issue 229, but I’m travelling and have to be brief. So here’s a list of things I found particularly wonderful:

•  ‘Indefatigable Wings‘ by Allan Drew, which argues the case for the continuing influence John Milton, of Paradise Lost fame. The argument doesn’t completely convince, but it’s refreshing.
• ‘Napalm, guns & underwear‘, in which Aotaroan / New Zealander Michalia Arathimos tells the story of her Maori environmental activist partner’s arrest (and subsequently release) on terrorism charges. It’s a tale of dangerous absurdity.
• ‘Sleeping the deep, deep sleep‘ by Dean Biron and Suzie Gibson, an essay about the state of the world which begins with the photograph of the Earth taken from Apollo 17 in 1972 and ends with Voyager I’s 1990 photograph. Carl Sagan’s description of the latter photograph as showing ‘a tiny blue dot suspended in a sunbeam’ takes on tragic resonances. (I also liked the phrase ‘rouge states’, which may have been an original typo or, I hope, a typo quoted from the Spectator.
• ‘On sovereignty‘, a column by Tony Birch spelling out the epochal implications of the Turnbull cabinet’s summary rejection of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Every edition of  Overland includes the results of at least one writing competition. (Long may the practice continue!) This issue has the third Fair Australia Prize, sponsored by the NUW in partnership with the MEAA and the NTEU: a poem, a short fiction, an essay and a cartoon. The Member Winner, ‘Beyond the Bridge to Nowhere‘ by Michael Dulaney, an essay about lead pollution in a South Australian town, is among the outstanding pieces in a generally excellent issue.