Sensoria

Bruce Jennings is Developmental Editor of Humans & Nature Press Books and Senior Fellow at the Center for Humans and Nature. He is on the faculty of Vanderbilt University in the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society and in the Department of Health Policy. He is a Fellow of The Hastings Center, where he was on the research staff from 1980-2006 and served as Executive Vice President from 1991 through 1999. He has published widely on ethical and social issues in hospital treatment decision making, palliative care, and hospice. He was the co-founder of the “Decisions Near the End of Life” program, an educational and practice change program that was conducted in over 200 hospitals in 20 states from 1990-1996. Jennings has been a leader in ethics research and education in the field of public health. He was on the faculty of the School of Public Health at Yale University and worked on ethics education with the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019 he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Public Health Association for his work in public health ethics. He has written or edited over thirty books, including Ecological Governance: Toward a New Social Contract with the Earth. More about Bruce and his work can be found at https://my.vanderbilt.edu/brucejennings/about-me/Dr. Gavin Van Horn is the executive editor of Humans & Nature Press Books, the author of The Way of Coyote, and the co-editor of City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness, Wildness: Relations of People and Place, the award-winning five-volume series Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations, and the five-volume series Elementals. He currently resides in the ancestral lands of the Northern Chumash people in San Luis Obispo, California, where you can find him wandering the nearby hills and shores, senses awakened by sage, hummingbirds, and ocean air. More about Gavin and his work can be found at www.storyforager.com.Heather Swan, PhD, is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her most recent collection of poems, Dandelion, was released from Terrapin Books in 2023. Her first poetry book, A Kinship with Ash (Terrapin Books), published in 2020, was a finalist for both the ASLE Book Award and the Julie Suk Award. Her book Where Honeybees Thrive (Penn State Press) won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. A companion book, Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnection, was just released in May 2024. Her nonfiction has appeared in such journals as The Sun, Emergence, and Minding Nature, among others. She has been the recipient of the August Derleth Poetry Award, the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Best Chapbook Award, the Martha Meier Renk Fellowship in Poetry at UW Madison, and an Illinois Arts Council Poetry Fellowship Award. She teaches environmental literature and writing at UW Madison.

“This remarkable collection delights, teaches, and astounds, all at once. It is a feast for the ears, a symphony for the mouth, and a bouquet for the soul. I am so glad that it exists; our world is made better because of it.”—Charles Hood, author of Wild LA and Nocturnalia: Nature in the Western Night“A collection as diverse and generative as the senses themselves. Rich in experience and insight, these writings awaken and invite. Through vibrant and compelling stories and juxtapositions, we’re called to deeper perception, embodied engagement, and right action grounded in the sensory riches of the living Earth.”—David George Haskell, biologist and two-time Pulitzer-finalist author of How Flowers Made our World, Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen

• Sensoria: Attending to the Wonder and Vitality of NatureBruce Jennings and Gavin Van Horn, editorsHeather Swan, poetry editorTable of Contents Gavin Van Horn, Bruce Jennings, Heather Swan, A Song of Awakening: An Introduction to SensoriaI. SeeingCarolyn Purnell, In the Eye of the Beholder: Color Perception and Historical DifferenceBrittney Corrigan, VanishingSohini Basak, Close Your Eyes: A Reminder to Blink (Or What I Learn at Family Dinner Conversations)Laura Sewall, An Ethical EyeLauren Camp, Instructions on the SkyLars Chittka, More Than Attraction: What Bees See in FlowersJoshua Mabie, Blindness and SightCamille T. Dungy, In her mostly white town, an hour from Rocky Mountain National Park, a Black poet considers centuries of protests against racialized violenceBenjamin Aldes Wurgaft, Glass Paradise II. Hearing Liam Heneghan, Is This Essay Noise?Nickole Brown, Prayer to Be Still and KnowDavid Rothenberg, Tibutibuvihihehehiu: Live with the Blyth’s Reed WarblerJ Drew Lanham, Forest Thrush Song Primer in 3 HaikuGordon Miller, The Pulse of Life and the Rhythms of MindRebecca R. Burrill, Movement Makes Sound and Sound Is Movement: The Dance and Song of Embodiment in the Re-Enchantment of LearningGordon Hempton, Listening Is Not What You ThinkPacyinz Lyfoung, The day I learned to speak my grandmother’s tongueMartin Lee Mueller and Austra Apsīte, You Are Skywoman Breathing, Singing III. Smelling Elena Mancioppi, Arturo’s Multispecies OsmoverseCMarie Fuhrman, BeargrassBill S. Hansson, Smell MastersErin Coughlin Hollowell, Savoring the Scent of TimeGary Paul Nabhan, Coming to Our Senses the Hard WayNicholas Triolo, The Smell of EternityKai Coggin, Night Blooming Cereus / Queen of the Night IV. Tasting Kalyanee Mam, ស្គាល់ មជាតិ Knowing Your TasteBrenda Cárdenas, Ofrenda de OtoñoGavin Van Horn, Taste and SeeElizabeth Jacobson, One TasteOrrin Williams, Urban, Sacred, FoodJames Crews, MoreMarcus Kes Pih Soh Mekek Grignon, Taste of MapleRoss Gay, To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian  V. Touching Andreas Weber, Scarce Large BlueDanusha Laméris, StoneHeather Swan, The Sting of AwarenessElizabeth Bradfield, SpinnakerCaitlin O’Connell-Rodwell, Touching the Dead: Elephant Funerary BathingBruce Jennings, The Ambiguity of TouchCatherine Jagoe, Praise Song for a Plane TreeGregory Hitch, Rooted in Place: The Power of Cedars and SoilGavin Van Horn, Soft Flesh  VI. Sensing Together Heather Swan, GleamNick Hunt, Travel SenseAlexa Firmenich, Desire MandalasJane Hirshfield, One Reports Oneself MissingJohn MacNeill Miller, Our Time Is Limited Graham Harvey, Hedgehogs All the Way Around: Sensing Kinship in the Larger-than-Human WorldJennifer Oakes, OrecticErin Jayne Williams, Earthbound HeartRachel Harris, Ayahuasca Plant TeacherJohn Hausdoerffer, Senses of Place Permissions Acknowledgments Contributors