the Sea of Cortés, an elegiac love for each
living thing is suspended in stunning im-
age, juxtaposition, and reflection: “The
tide seeps in with its pewter descrip-
tion, / simple and flat under halophytic
grasses. We sit // under palapas that rus-
tle their shaggy hair, / as if clearing the
air of meaning.” The poem captures that
sense of the tenuous that oddly makes us
feel most alive: “All living is brushwork,
you say. // Watching the women wade to
the crates with their Styrofoam floats, / the
oysters quivering in their cups of flesh
and lime.”
— Alison Hawthorne Deming
The Day After Tomorrow
BY J HENRY FAIR
powerHouse Books, 2010. $39.95, 144 pages.
j Henry fair’s The day After Tomorrow: Images of our earth
in Crisis first grabs your attention with its tragic and beauti-
ful imagery. Expansive, aerial abstracts as well as detailed,
sometimes straightforward journalistic documents, his
photographs explore the wide-ranging impact of consumer
culture on our planet. locations featured in this book include
industrial sites in India, Africa, canada, and, of course, the
united States, with an unavoidable focus on the dual gulf
disasters of katrina and the bp oil spill. but this book is not
merely about outrage or exposé. Accompanying the images
are provocative essays from leading cultural thinkers such as
Roger Hodge (former editor-in-chief of Harper’s), john Rock-
well (of the New York Times), and james Hansen (a longtime
leading scientist on climate change), as well as expanded
captions and a clever categorizing system to help elucidate
each issue’s impact on our health and the environment. fair
makes no attempt to hide or diminish his passionate advo-
cacy—and his images, and the book, are better for it.
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2011 ORION
