On first read of these essays, it’s the anger that is striking, palpable. This book is beautiful, haunting, funny, emotionally astute, and captivating with every turn of the page. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. You need to write with love.”. I read this from the library but may have to buy a copy because I have notes from nearly every page of the book. “Racism, for many people, seems to occupy space in very much the same way as dark matter: it forms the skeleton of our world, yet remains ultimately invisible, undetectable.”. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Start by marking “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground” as Want to Read: Error rating book. I feel comforted - in my love, in my anger, in my identity.. Alicia Elliott is a survivor. That is, a poem is a made thing: a creation; an artifact. . Laurie G. The arresting title of Elliott’s powerful essay collection is the English rendering of a Mohawk word for depression. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, by Alicia Elliott. I can't remember that ever working before. The problem with ‘diversity’ in publishing, she explains in “On Seeing and Being Seen”, is that it “is not about letting those who aren’t white make whatever art matters to them and their communities.” Rather, she says, drawing on the work of performance artist Tania Cañas, it’s about making sense of difference “through the white lens.”, “It’s the literary equivalent of ‘ethnic restaurants,'” writes Elliott. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground showcases her peculiar alchemy, lighting the darkest corners of racism, classism, sexism with her laser-focused intellect and kind-hearted soul-searching. Published in March 2019, this book of essays on mental health and Canada and health and family and so much more is so so needed and I wish I could gift everyone I know a copy of this book! I will come back to these essays often. How have these two cultures shaped her life and worldview? A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is Alicia Elliott's attempt to answer these questions and more. Reading her reminiscences of student life in Toronto causes me to remember, with visceral clarity, that experience, and especially the tortuous sessions I faced with painful regularity when I was called in by course directors to explain my grade distribution, which routinely exceeded the averages we were told to aim for. I wouldn't mind this but for how influenced people seem to be by a book that falls victim to logical fallacies, some bad science, and cognitive distortions. . This student didn’t “act” like an A student; didn’t “engage properly” in class, didn’t “conduct themselves” the way a top student should. As she is a superb writer, her scholarship is paramount, her grasp of science and the connections she makes are remarkable. . Alicia Elliott is by far the best author of essays that I have ever come across. This is an incredible book." In this urgent and visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of personal, intergenerational, and … Super intense. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published She has faced more challenges in her young life than many of us face in a lifetime. . A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a finalist for the 2019 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. I think she is at the beginning or middle stages of thoughts on these topics. Blackpink's Rosé released her first solo project last night with a moving, beautiful, and lyrically-deep lead single, "On the Ground," about where … A bold and profound meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America from an award-winning Haudenosaunee writer. And for good reason – it’s a mark of Elliott’s ability to connect with her audience that this artfully articulated rage builds an empathic link with the reader. “To truly write from another experience in an authentic way, you need more than empathy. This is an extraordinary, powerful, incredible must-read gem and gift of a book. . I never want it to end.”. Grade curving and average distribution remain prominent, if blunt, stealth tools in the academy’s toolkit for preserving colonial and racist hierarchies in the post-secondary system and the labour market it produces. . “Antiracism is a process. "A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a tour de force. I digress, but perhaps the point of these essays, for settler readers, is to encourage them to digress; to deviate more often from their conditioned and naturalized ways of engaging in the world, and from the legacy of generations of colonial privilege. I would call it a must-read but would encourage the reader to go slow and savour the work. "A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a tour de force. Our love is a process. I think she is at the beginning or middle stages of thoughts on these topics. It never has been,” she observes. See instructions. Refresh and try again. I enjoyed anecdotes about the author's life and hearing about the Canadian context in current nonfiction. And yet on the other hand, when Indigenous writers are taken seriously, their work almost inevitably remains constrained within a narrow literary sphere delimited by what publishers think Indigenous writers can and should write about, and by the ways in which their identity is expected to drive their work. Review to come. The titular essay refers to a translated Mohawk phrase for the term ‘depression’, and underscores one of the book’s recurring themes: the pervasive role colonialism and settler genocide against North American Indigenous peoples has played in fuelling and enforcing today’s enduring realities, from mental health crises to malnutrition to abuse. I wouldn't mind this but for how influenced people seem to be by a book that falls victim to logical fallacies, some bad science, and cognitive distortions. Honestly one of the best essay collections I have ever read. The words poem and poetry derive from the Greek poiēma (to make) and poieo (to create). The title of Tuscarora writer Alicia Elliott’s debut collection of essays, A Mind Spread Out On The Ground, is a translated Mohawk phrase roughly meaning a person in the throes of … I would sometimes sit for hours with these professors – world-renowned scholars in equity, anti-racism, and feminism – who would berate me for giving too high marks, and then proceed student-by-student through the course grades, aiming to find enough students to knock down a few percentage points to match their assigned grade quotas. Somehow, she manages to take a subject and open it up, dissect it, and introduce me to things I would never have even considered. I borrowed this from the library but it's now on my to-buy and favourites lists. Well, Canadian Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott has opened my eyes to a few subject matters with her powerful, thoughtful, honest and moving collection of essays. What a stunning collection. . In the essay “Sontag, in Snapshots” she extends her analysis to photography, exploring the aggressions and colonial forms produced by that medium. . . It is brilliant and should be required reading for all. A stand-out piece, “Dark Matter”, draws on Elliott’s interest in space and astronomy to compare the operation of racism in our world to the elusive role of dark matter in the universe: scientists know it exists, that it’s pervasive and connects everything, yet we can neither see it nor understand, really, what it is and how it operates. I enjoyed anecdotes about the author's life and hearing about the Canadian context in current nonfiction. A MIND SPREAD OUT ON THE GROUND Alicia Elliott Reading Group Guide *** 1. ***Shortlisted for the 2020 First Nations Communities Read Indigenous Literature Award***. Each one I set aside a full day to read. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Tuscarora author Alicia Elliott starts her debut book, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, by comparing depression to colonialism. Perhaps they let their feelings and first-hand experiences interfere with their objective analysis. A fresh and revolutionary cultural critic alternately witty, vulnerable and piercing. “[T]hey please white people because they provide them with ‘exotic’ new flavours, but if they don’t appease white people’s sensitive taste buds they’re not worth a damn.”, In “Not Your Noble Savage” she picks up the analysis again, dissecting “literary colonialism: insidious criticisms – almost always from non-Indigenous people – that not only reflect but reinforce troubling attitudes of colonial ownership over Indigenous people within the literary community. What a gd work of art. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground showcases her peculiar alchemy, lighting the darkest corners of racism, classism, sexism with her laser-focused intellect and kind-hearted soul-searching. Alicia Elliott launches A Mind Spread Out on the Ground. A bold and profound meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America from award-winning Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott. Indeed, Alicia Elliott has created a small masterpiece in 'A Mind Spread Out on the Ground'. These challenges include but are not limited to: poverty; homelessness; family violence; teen-age pregnancy; depression and a parent with major mental health problems. It is not well reasoned in many part. ESSAY. These include policing what Native writers can write about, and even whether they count as Native at all… those enforcing literary colonialism want us to stick to our script.”, “Settlers prefer this stereotypical, impossible image because it means they can outsource their guilt. The essays are not just powerfully personal, but intelligent and stylistically innovative as well. I realize, on reading Elliott’s essays, that here was the pervasive working of that invisible dark matter she refers to – permeating and shaping the universe and our interactions with each other. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is what happens when you come in a good way to offer prayer, and instead, end up telling the entire damn truth of it all." Tuscarora writer Alicia Elliott makes her debut with a collection of essays that covers everything you can think of. Deeply moving, exceptionally well-written essays questioning the ever-present effects of colonialism on Indigenous peoples in North America and how colonialism / capitalism collide with / disrupt art, culture, mental health, a sense of belonging. Decolonial love is a process. In the style of memoir essay, award winning and bestselling Canadian author Alicia Elliott shares her riveting debut collection: “A Mind Spread Out On The Ground” (2020). this was top notch.