transcription (i can’t play sport)
By olive bly
they won’t
force me to fight
in the war
being trans
is a mental
illness, yes
you can’t
fight in the war
if you’re ill
i am
mentally ill
so can’t war
i was
terrible at
sports in school
only
ever really
scored one goal
& ’cause
sport & war are
the same thing
i don’t
think i would be
good at war
olive bly (Tangata Tiriti, Pākehā) is an outer-disciplinary artist of european descent from Aotearoa, New Zealand, and currently based in Naarm, Melbourne, Australia. Her work traverses a variety of mediums, finding synaesthetic links between multitudinous reference points. She adopts playful creative philosophies that blend the naive with the theoretic, underpinned by thematic cyclicality.
Her visual art has recently been exhibited in Aotearoa by MEANWHILE & Uindō95, and her poetry has been published by various literary journals and magazines, including a fine line, bad apple, and Nine Lives. She trained in jazz piano at Te Kōki (New Zealand School of Music) and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington). Her debut poetry collection, chrysalis (d[i̶]s)section, was published in August 2025 with 5ever books. Visit her website at olivebly.art.
Photo credit: No War by hellolittlemolly via a Creative Commons license.
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