Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult
Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

The Whales

The whales would sing because they were alone, but with each other, their song a reminder that loss and exile are linked.

What do you see in your future?

let goI won’t pass this on to you, I promise

I like the night up hereWe can see the stars.

They are not our stars,

Don’t worryDon’t worry.

They are singing to save the world, the entire world,

Janice Lee is a Korean American writer, teacher, spiritual scholar, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 7 books of fiction, creative nonfiction & poetry, most recently:  Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021) and Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books,  2022). She writes about interspecies communication, plants & personhood, the filmic long take, slowness, the apocalypse, architectural spaces, inherited trauma, and the Korean concept of han, and asks the question, how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy? Incorporating shamanic and energetic healing, she teaches workshops on inherited trauma, healing and writing, and practices in several lineages, including the medicine tradition of the Q’ero, Zen Buddhism (in the tradition of Plum Village and Thich Nhat Hanh), plant & animal medicine, and Korean shamanic ritual (Muism). She currently lives in Portland, OR where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University.