But the idea of transformation has always been something that I romanticize in a work. I’m cautious of it but I also need it to connect my thoughts with the process of making. That’s really important.
—
Nari Ward
from The American Museum of Water by Natalie Diaz
- The Polynesian Voyaging Society’s Hikianalia Journey to California by Julian Brave NoiseCat
- CHERRY RIVER, Where the Rivers Mix by Katherine Cooper
- Marwa Helal’s Invasive Species by Safia Elhillo
- Black Line, Mixed Signals, and Île d’Ouessant by Jordan Cronk
- Jeff Whetstone’s The Batture Ritual by Ratik Asokan
- Christos Ikonomou’s Good Will Come From the Sea by Ellie Robins
Editor's Choice
- Lauren Bon and Oscar Tuazon by
- Alicia Kopf by Mara Faye Lethem
- Mary Lucier by Alex Klein
- Jaque Fragua and Brad Kahlhamer
- Ruth Cuthand by Chantal McStay
- Janaina Tschäpe by Francesco Clemente
- Jessica Grindstaff of Phantom Limb by Sophie Hunter
- Tomoko Sauvage by Britton Powell
- Cecilia Vicuña by Elianna Kan
Interviews
- from Return to the Yakne Chitto by Monique Verdin & Raymond Jackson
- Saltscapes by Ragna Róbertsdóttir
- from Northern Light by Kazim Ali
- from Oval by Elvia Wilk
- The Cult of Mary by Laura van den Berg
- The Cabin by Brenda Coultas
- from The American Museum of Water by Natalie Diaz
- Lovely Guns of Glacial Shifting by Jasmine Dreame Wagner
- There Is Water by Maggie Umber
First Proof
- End Page by Sto Len
End Page
Natalie Diaz is a Mojave-language activist and the author of the poetry collection When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press, 2012).
Related
The writers on indigenous ancestry, playing with language, and maintaining public personas.
The poet and artist invokes ancient matriarchal cultures, Indigenous folkways, and the speculative capacities of language so that we might rediscover our kinship with nature.
From Return to the Yakne Chitto: Houma Migrations (Neighborhood Story Project, University of New Orleans Press, 2019), a collaborative ethnography of Houma lifeways at the ends of the Louisiana bayou.
Originally published in
BOMB 146,
Winter 2019
Our winter issue is dedicated to this planet’s greatest resource: water. With contributions from Saskatchewan and the American Southwest to Iceland and Northern Europe, an array of voices are brought together here—artists and writers investigating water as site, sustenance, and symbol, along with those expressing alarm and calling for intervention.
Featuring interviews with Lauren Bon, Oscar Tuazon, Jaque Fragua, Brad Kahlhamer, Ruth Cuthand, Janaina Tschäpe, Jessica Grindstaff, Tomoko Sauvage, Cecilia Vicuña, and Alicia Kopf, as well as writing by Laura van den Berg, Natalie Diaz, Stefan Helmreich, and more.
