Elementals: Air, Vol. 2

Air, Volume 2 of the 5-Volume Elementals series, is a stunning collection of essays, poetry, and stories that illuminate the dynamic relationships between people and place, human and nonhuman life, mind and the material world, and the living energies that make all life possible.

Infinite and always in motion, constituent of everything, air is unutterably old, and its spirit carries with it the story of everything. What to make of a thing as ineffable as air? The stories and poems in this volume weave a web of words that gives us room to breathe more openly, providing spaces where the imagination can thrive. Welcome to Air.

The Elementals series explores how people from various cultures across the planet have worked with these powerful forces of change and regeneration to shape landscapes and deepen personal and place-based relationships. Contributors for Air, Volume 2 include: Gavin Van Horn • Bruce Jennings • Daegan Miller • Aimee Nezhukumatahil • Sohini Basak • Andrew S. Yang • Ellen Bass • Darran Anderson • Nicholas Triolo • Felicia Zamora • Sara Beck • Michele Wick • Ross Gay • Roy Scranton • Antonia Malchik • Benjamin Kunkel • Rita Dove • Báyò Akómoláfé • Craig Santos Perez • Gabrielle Bellot

With compelling stories and insightful reflections, Air, Volume 2 reveals how people are working with, adapting to, and cocreating relational depth and ecological diversity by respectfully attending to the atmospheric forces that shape our everyday worlds.

Proceeds from sales of Elementals benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with those who creatively explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets, and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.