The man who tells me not to go looking for the latest map of where the trains
stop to change crews – because I’d be putting into jeopardy the well-being and
whereabouts of fugitives who need to hop trains to survive – tells me he’s
written a book about his own travels. In the book, he describes how he stalked
and caught a wild boar and roasted it over a fire. He includes a diagram that
illustrates how to cut up a boar once you’ve killed one, and where to insert
your stabbing stick: between the front leg and the upper rib, aiming for the
heart.
“THERE’S NO THROUGH TRAIL” —HAN-SHAN, TRANSLATED BY GARY SNYDER
Bookmobile in Eugene, Oregon
by Elena Johnson
Issue: Spring/Summer 2021
About Elena Johnson
Elena Johnson is the author of Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra (Gaspereau, 2015), a collection of poems set at a remote ecology research station in the Yukon. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies across Canada, including Best Canadian Poetry, and shortlisted for the Alfred G. Bailey Prize. She is an editor of Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis (Coach House, 2020). She lives in Vancouver, BC, on unceded Coast Salish territory. The French translation of her book, Notes de terrain pour la toundra alpine (tr. Luba Markovskaia), was published by Jardins de givre in 2021. For her book, click here.
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