Q&A with Oliver Rose Brown
“I am a deft bludger, a savvy bludger, but never could I become the Deserving Bludger – this archetype has rougher hands, I think, has deep grooves for frown lines.”
~ ‘Bludger Ontology’ by Oliver Rose Brown
Your creative nonfiction piece ‘Bludger Ontology’ explores shame, welfare and class divisions in contemporary Australia. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind your work?
I think it came from a combo of really shitty experiences with Centrelink and an unhealthy habit of trawling Facebook comments under articles about Jobseeker. In those appointments it really feels like anything you say or do can damn you to the status of bludger, of workshy, of lazy, so you end up having these really weird interactions with staff. They'll ask you things like, "So, why don't you go and get a little job at a fruit shop?" and you sort of nod and go, well I'll try that - full well knowing that "little fruit shop" had over two hundred applicants for their "little job" and you seem to be living in a different economic reality to this other person. There's also this implicit thing of having to cop whatever this person says to you, because at the end of the day they have power over you. I remember early in my transition having a job provider scoff at my name - "why would you pick a name like Oliver?" - then look me up and down and imply that's why no one was hiring me. Hell, maybe she was on to something. But in the moment it was a hideous feeling. So in writing this I kind of felt like I was putting my foot down, that I wasn't going to be cowed by some bureaucrats into shame.
Your poetry has been published in #enbylife and your short stories in Bareknuckle Poet. What do you enjoy, or find challenging, about both forms?
I love short stories because you start at this point of intensity, then kind of leave the door open at the end for what might happen. Any detail you add has to serve that intensity. I think I pick up on an imagined voice for short stories, trying to embody a character or an archetype. Poetry is always more personal for me, and more delicate. I'm much more of a pearl-clutcher with it, and I find myself fussing over one line or one word. I love that both are short though, it suits my attention span.
You are also a zine-maker with ‘We Out Here Missing Mark Fisher,’ and ‘I Met the Gods of Brisbane and They Had Fuck All To Say’ (self-described as "briscore ennui.") How did you first get into zine-making?
I was living in a sharehouse where there were a couple of zines around, specifically from the local music scene and those really confessional, beautifully messy ones. My focus for writing was really shot at the time, so I started reading zines and comics to get back into it. Then I realized we have a free zine-making place here in Brisbane, Visible Ink, and started journaling and drawing again. My Mark Fisher zine was about mourning and addressing shame, too. Zines are the best for catharsis.
Who are some great writers, poets or zinesters currently on your radar?
I've been getting into DBC Pierre lately - ‘Meanwhile In Dopamine City’ is the latest thing of his that I've read and I loved it: Black Mirror but in purple prose. One of my favourite zines is by an anonymous zinester, it's called ‘Delete Me, I'm So Ugly.’ It's free on the anarchist zine library and it's deeply sad and beautiful too. As for poetry, I've always been a big Anne Carson fan.
Oliver Rose Brown is a transmasculine poet living in Meanjin. Their work has appeared in Baby Teeth Arts, the Tundish Review, Bareknuckle Poet, #enbylife, and URINAL magazine.