Personal Volcano

Personal Volcano is about the sublime physical presence of volcanoes and the author's direct experience of them, as well as the history of catastrophes connected to volcanoes in California and around the world. It is a meditation on ecopoetics, the implications of global warming, and the catastrophes to come. Volcanoes have caused famines and even extinctions in the past and yet volcanoes are an ephemeral phenomenon in the context of geologic time and, much like people, barely take up a moment in the vast changeable history which can include the elimination of creatures at the top of the food chain like ourselves.