Orion May / June 2011

IT IS HARDER to get caught up in the natural mysteries of the planet than it used to be. That’s a generalization no doubt some would argue with, but there would be more who would agree. People are busier and more distracted, by the stress of their lives, the intrusion of modern media, and the knowledge that the global environment is under siege. And so, in trying to get reconnected with the planet it is good to have a guide, one who can teach you how to watch, how to use your senses, how to be patient, and how to understand how immersion in a place, or in a moment, can transform your relationship with the world. In Orion’s earliest days, when its editors were trying to find their way…

Jennifer Barber is the author of the poetry collection Rigging the Wind and the forthcoming Given Away, and has been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. Clare Cavanagh, translator of Adam Zagajewski’s poem in this issue, is a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland and the author of several books, including, most recently, the novel Mink River. Bruce Haley is the recipient of the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the civil war in Burma. His new monograph Sunder was published by Daylight/Charta. Robin Hemley is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction. He is a senior editor of The Iowa Review, editor of Defunct,…

Yes, I agree with Janisse Ray (“Track Back,” January/February 2011) that train travel is a wonderful alternative—one that I enjoyed as a kid, and as an adult in Europe and Alaska. But for many of us living in the western United States, it is simply not an option. To board a train to anywhere, I would first have to fly, bus, or drive about three hundred miles to the nearest train station in Salt Lake City, Utah. From there, my choices of destination are severely limited. That makes train travel here a hobby, rather than a practical alternative form of transportation. LINDA PAULBoise, Idaho Janisse Ray’s piece is beautiful. I’ve always been drawn to the lyricism in her writing, and, once again, she has pulled me in in such a…

“What It Is That Feeds Us” (July/August 2010), by BK Loren, has been selected for the Best American Spiritual Writing 2012 anthology. Terry Tempest Williams’s essay “The Gulf Between Us” (November/December 2010) was a finalist for the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Reed Writing Award in the category of journalism. Editor-in-Chief Chip Blake, Associate Editor Hannah Fries, and Editorial Assistant Kristen Hewitt traveled to Washington DC in February for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. Orion presented two panels and cohosted a reception with Poets & Writers. Editor Jennifer Sahn traveled to Iowa in February for the seventh annual Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness & the Creative Imagination at Iowa State University, where she participated in a panel on the publishing industry. The tenth annual International Women’s Day Conference, with…

Elizabeth Liew Singapore TODAY IT IS RAINING. Industrial lampposts, sleepy leaves, the creaky red tile on the roof—everything is dripping. Water rushes through the drains, to the longkangs, and to the reservoirs, where it will meld and mingle with its siblings. The smell of rain touches everything and will linger till tomorrow. My country’s landscapes are not poignant. We have no ungovernable black waves threatening silvery cliffs and beaches. We have no ancient hidden nooks that whisper fey tales of high kings and battles. Our composite heart does not recall guttural war cries from long-ago revolutions or songs that a person could forget or never learn and yet still know. How do you obtain that rhythm of history, of sure and certain knowledge of your place? We have not yet…

I’VE BEEN SENT a hit list. Fifteen people are picked out for assassination, and one of the names—on a list that includes the head of the Baptist churches, youth leaders, legislators, students, and an anthropologist—is a friend of mine. All the targets are unarmed West Papuan leaders and thinkers. The hit list was compiled by Kopassus, the Indonesian military special forces responsible for massacres and human rights abuses in West Papua, where the world’s most underreported genocide has taken place. Women and children have been raped and whole villages bombed, napalmed from the air. One person in ten has been murdered by the Indonesian military, at least a hundred thousand people, according to Amnesty International. For almost half a century, ever since Indonesia’s illegal invasion of West Papua in 1962,…