Description

DESCRIPTION

In the tradition of The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson and On the Loose by Terry and Renny Russell, Earth & Eros combines words and photographs to inspire readers to deepen their connection with the good earth and with their own capacity for reverence. The book is meant to awaken readers to the full force of eros—broadly defined as the life force that connects us to our bodies, to other humans, to all other living beings on the earth, and to the earth as a living being—in their own lives.

Intended as an antidote to an age obsessed by speed, screens, and machines, in which most people are not fully embodied, the 132-page book brings together previously published prose and poetry with 25 fine art landscape photographs to explore the sacred erotic dimension of humans’ relationship to the earth.

The writings in Earth & Eros were chosen for their brevity, readability, beauty, and potency, and the photographs for their sensuality. Between its covers readers will engage with writers such as David James Duncan, Hart Crane, Diane Ackerman, Sherman Alexie, D. H. Lawrence and Pablo Neruda. Some of the pieces of writing are explicitly and graphically sexual, while others appreciate the sensuality of tree limbs, seeping water, mushrooms, ferns, rich dark earth. Earth & Eros is beautifully produced and a pleasure to hold and to look at; it is a book that will be kept by the bedside or in the backpack and read and reread slowly, out loud.

EDITOR Lorraine Anderson

PHOTOGRAPHER Bruce Hodge

FOREWORD by Robert Michael Pyle

REVIEWS & ENDORSEMENTS

“In a world of distraction and grief, Earth & Eros returns us to our own wise senses. All praise to the lyrical writing, the gorgeous photographs: testimony to the power of embodied delight.”
—Christian McEwen, author of World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down and Sparks from the Anvil: The Smith College Poetry Interviews

“A masterpiece of discovery and juxtaposition. Reading the beautiful and thought-provoking text alongside photo as glossy and dense as reality feels like waking up, like remembering.” —Kim Stanley, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Forty Signs of Rain, 2312, and Aurora

“A book of vivid voices and lush images to be savored and cherished. Earth & Eros offers a way to re-root ourselves back into our own bodies, the Earth, and our wildly alive and sensual natures.”—Mary Reynolds Thompson, author of Reclaiming the Wild Soul and Embrace Your Inner Wild

“An exceptional resource and an artistic treasure, Earth & Eros reminds us that the planet is a very sexy place. Reading these luscious poems and prose passages and staring into Bruce Hodge’s stunning photos arouses an awareness of the intimacy between body, language, art, and nature.”
—Henry Hughes, author of Men Holding Eggs (winner of the Oregon Book Award) and Moist Meridian

“This glorious book of hours makes the land the object of our meditation and desire. Accompanying sensuous images of nature are passages about living from a larger love—from an eros that extends from cell to body to family to community to this blue ball of earth, with all its wildness and wonder. This is the work of our age, and of the ages.” —Valerie Andrews, author of A Passion for This Earth

“Dominant and domineering Western culture has built its fortress on Logos. We have lost the wisdom that might situate its threads within the greater story lines of Mythos. Lorraine Anderson’s anthology weaves such connections back to touch through Eros. She helps us re-member what has been dis-membered.”
—Alastair McIntosh, author of Soil and Soul and Hell and High Water

“Earth & Eros is a lovely, stirring, and significant book. It is a gift to those who love the reeling world. Because we are joined to the Earth, rejoicing in our deep connection to its tides, we are called to defend it—fiercely, faithfully, for all time.” —Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort and Great Tide Rising