Fifteen years further into climate change, I am revisiting writings collected in 2003 and published by MIT Press. In their introduction to the Terra Nova anthology, Writing on Air, editors David Rothenburg and Wandee Pryor offer an collective OM: “This book is eclectic, so say the least. Broken into parts, it looks at air as substance and metaphor, examining weather and objects in the sky. We have sought to give it back its elusiveness. Air escapes use but it also pervades everything we do, from the laughter that trickles out fo our mouths to the light it carries to the page. It unites us, erasing contradictions by being everything at once. It gives and it takes; it allows movement and forbids.”
“From aerial plankton to Navajo wind gods, from joyful singing to painful emphysema, from gentle breezes to violent storms, Writing on Air creates a fresh way of thinking about the role of air inner everyday lives. Included in the book are prose pieces by poet Hayden Carruth, paulo de costa, Kristjana Gunnars, filmmaker Werner Herzog, Howard Mansfield, Sarah Menin, and C.L. Rawlings; an excerpt from a play by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann on the discovery of oxygen; poems by Lori Anderson, Tõnu Õnnepalu, Andrew Schelling, and Virgil Suárez; and art and photography by Manuel Acevedo, Stuart Allen, Marsha Cottrelll, Susan Derges, the Koraw tribe of the Indian hills, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Tuula Närhinen, and the airborne dancers of Project Bandaloop.”
I am honored to have my “Atomic Nature of MA” included in the conversation.