Small Bodies of Water

by Nina Mingya Powles

Tomoko Kawao. . 2014:

  Museum of White Clouds

  Kerry Ann Lee. Return to Skyland. Video & vinyl wallpaper installation at the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, 2018.

  In the Archive of Waterfalls

  Robert F. Inger and Phui Kong Chin. The Fresh-Water Fishes of North Borneo. Fieldiana: Zoology [vol. 45]. Sabah, Malaysia: Sabah Zoological Society, 1990 (1964).

  E.J.H. Corner. Royal Society Expedition to North Borneo 1961. Special Reports: 1. SOILS, Linnean Society London, [vol. 175, iss. 1], January 1964.

  Nan Shepherd. The Living Mountain. London: Canongate Books, 2011 (1977).

  Saidiya Hartman. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2019.

  Lilian S. Gibbs. A Contribution to the Flora and Plant Formations of Mount Kinabalu and the Highlands of British North Borneo. Malaysia; London: Natural History Publications (Borneo) in association with The Linnean Society London, 2001.

  Patrick Syme. Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours: Adapted to Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts. London: Natural History Museum, 2017 (1814).

  K. Emma Ng. Old Asian, New Asian. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2017.

  Linda Lau Anusasananan. The Hakka Cookbook. Berkley: University of California Press, 2012.

  Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. London: Penguin Books, 2020 (2013).

  Thank you to the editors of the following publications where early versions of these essays first appeared: ‘A Girl Swimming Is a Body of Water’ in The Willowherb Review and At the Pond, published by Daunt Books Publishing; ‘The Language of Waves’ in Ache Magazine; ‘Falling City’ in The Shanghai Literary Review and Magnolia, , published by Nine Arches Press; ‘Unpeel’ in AAWW’s The Margins; ‘Tender Gardens’ in Landfall; ‘Ache: A Swimming Diary’ in Turbine | Kapohau; and ‘Museum of White Clouds’ in Hainamana Arts. ‘Faraway Love’ was originally commissioned by the e-newsletter series close.

  Acknowledgements

  I am forever grateful that I’ve formed friendships with a group of women whose art and activism constantly inspires me. Many of them read and helped shape early drafts of these essays: thank you to Saradha Soobrayen, Pema Monaghan, Pratyusha and Jennifer Wong.

  This book would not exist without Jessica J. Lee, whose memoir Turning set me on my path and made this work feel possible. Thank you for your friendship and support, and for our cold swims.

  In establishing the Nan Shepherd Prize, Canongate have helped make the field of nature writing more inclusive. I’m endlessly grateful for their vision and their support – especially my editor Megan Reid, Caroline Clarke, Vicki Rutherford, Alice Shortland and Lucy Zhou, and my brilliant copyeditor Saba Ahmed.

  Thanks to my agent, Kirsty McLachlan, for her constant support, to Gill Heeley for her stunning painted artwork on the cover, and to Jo Dingley for her illustrations.

  Thanks also to Rose Lu, Helen Rickerby and Sarah Webster, whose words I always, always value. And to past writing teachers Marin Sardy, Ashleigh Young and Harry Ricketts, and my workshop classmates from both 2013 and 2020, who encouraged me to keep writing about whales.

  I’m indebted to the librarians at the Linnean Society of London, my teacher at London Ming’Ai Institute, Hu Laoshi, and all my former colleagues at the National Poetry Library.

  Thanks most of all to my family, especially Mum, Dad, Gong Gong and Po Po, for all those trips up Mount Kinabalu and to the Sabah Museum. Gong Gong, Kiu Kiu, Ai Lan, Aunty Bin, Uncle Boon, Sara, Adrian – I hope we’ll all get to see each other again soon.

  Thank you, David, for always accompanying me in search of the sea.

  ‘A luminous life-affirming book’

  Olivia Laing

  ‘Provides fascinating insights into the mysteries of the tides’

  Guardian

  ‘A masterpiece of Scottish writing’

  Observer