Dark Mountain Issue 27

Brand new with slight imperfections visible in the photos.

A Captivating Collection of Art and Writing from the Celebrated Dark Mountain Project

Twenty-seventh book is a collection of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and artwork revolving around bodies—human, creaturely, plant, and mineral. An anthology of the corporeal in times of crisis, collapse, and change.

Much in modern industrial culture encourages disembodiment—separation from both the self, as an animal being, and from the larger body of the Earth. The writing and artwork in this volume explore the consequences of that detachment, along with the many ways by which re-embodiment might be possible. Some contributors return to the ground through dance, while others place their bodies on the line in direct action protests. Connections are drawn between the spores of plants that predate dinosaurs and human autoimmune disease, and—shown on the cover—between herbs and human healing. There are tales of bodies that resist ‘healthy’ stereotypes, and explorations of how chronic illness can serve as a mirror to the ailments of the planet.

Also included are stories of reabsorption into the world, whether through deep connection with mountains and waters, or through the ritual of becoming a tree. Interspecies shapeshiftings and human-canine chimeras raise questions of where bodies end and where they begin. Some pieces are visceral—peeling back the anatomies of Italian Renaissance Venuses, burying a road-killed mole in a nettle-fibre shroud, or entering the uncanny world of blood platelet donation. Inevitably, death casts a shadow here. Yet the pages also hum with life: the palo verde beetle emerging from the Sonoran Desert; crows, coyotes, jellyfish, mountain goats, mare’s tail, granite, and trees; and the leafy guardian deity of the Amazon.

Bodies, far from being separate, atomised units existing in isolation, are interconnected, interpenetrating, and difficult to define. Dark Mountain: Issue 27 celebrates this complexity, showing how all beings are part of the living body of the Earth.