So it’s recently come to my attention that I’ve been majorly slacking in this blog. I saw this blog as just another platform for contacting me and for gaining access to some of my better known my poetry – basically as a promotional tool. Because, honestly, posting actual blogs discussing real things just seems scary – for many reasons. For one thing, I’m scared of people… Read More
My book review inspires another book review: Albina Riklon’s take on “Don’t Ever Whisper”
Note: My review of Giff Johnson’s book “Don’t Ever Whisper”, a biography of Marshallese nuclear activist /grassroots organizer Darlene Keju-Johnson was published in the Marshall Islands Journal (you can read it in my previous post or here:http://jkijiner.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/book-review-dont-ever-whisper-by-giff-johnson/ Apparently, Albina Riklon, whom I know through CMI and have hung out with before (an awesome teacher btw), read the review and it prompted… Read More
Book Review: “Don’t Ever Whisper” by Giff Johnson
Note: This review was published in the August 2, 2013 issue of the Marshall Islands Journal. You can order copies at Amazon.com or BarnesandNobles.com. When Ormita Jorelang first received training as a peer educator in a 1992 Majuro Youth Health Leadership seminar with Darlene Keju, she recalls the harrowing first time experience of being forced to recite a prayer in… Read More
Reflections on Nuclear Survivors Day
“Remember, recommit, resist.” As our UH Manoa student group, Oceania Rising, finalizes last minute details for Friday’s Nuclear Survivor’s Day, the 59th Anniversary of the dropping of the “Bravo” bomb on Bikini atoll, I find myself wrestling with what it means to remember, recommit and resist. From 1946 to 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in my home, the Marshall Islands, all of which were considered atmospheric…. Read More
Writing as a Wannabe Environmentalist
This morning I received an email about an Ocean Awareness Training happening out here in Hawaii. I was super excited while I was reading it. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for – some kind of training or group that could link me to environmentalism and conservationism out here in Hawaii, something that I could link back to my environmentalist… Read More
poem: A Bad Sign
We are shocked to find the rising waters have displaced our grave sites The land crumbles away beneath rows of skywhite tombstones The crashing sea swallows up our ancestors We watch as it devours our histories The sea is angry with us says an old man It has begun.
