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Borealis
An intimate essay on the art of Alaskan glaciers, memory, loneliness, and blackness in wild spaces.
In Borealis, Aisha Sabatini Sloan writes about a solitary summer visit to Alaska, observing glaciers, shorelines, mountains, bald eagles, and herself. As she studies her surroundings, the myth of Alaska—excitement, exploration, possibility—is complicated by boredom and isolation, and her attempts to set down place in writing are suffused with nostalgia and anxiety. The first title commissioned for the Spatial Species series, Borealis is a shapeshifting logbook of Sabatini Sloan’s experiences as a queer woman contemplating her Blackness in the wilderness and in the mysteries of art-making.
In Borealis, Aisha Sabatini Sloan writes about a solitary summer visit to Alaska, observing glaciers, shorelines, mountains, bald eagles, and herself. As she studies her surroundings, the myth of Alaska—excitement, exploration, possibility—is complicated by boredom and isolation, and her attempts to set down place in writing are suffused with nostalgia and anxiety. The first title commissioned for the Spatial Species series, Borealis is a shapeshifting logbook of Sabatini Sloan’s experiences as a queer woman contemplating her Blackness in the wilderness and in the mysteries of art-making.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
November 26, 2021
Aisha Sabatini Sloan's previous book, Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, ends with an essay called "Caldera." Set in Oregon, it's an essay that simultaneously feels like a great gasp and a held breath, as Sloan treks along the memory of a volcano and the blue lake in its wake around the 2016 election, contemplating being black outdoors, its consequences, guns, fear, and the intersection where one way of living in America crosses paths with another, then another. When it comes to these ideas, Borealis sort of resumes at the intersection where "Caldera" left off, but mostly in Alaska. There's a dream logic to this essay, where crying is compared to "touching time. A half-hearted attempt to crash into now." In other moments, Sloan's matter-of-factness cuts through the absurdity of modern life's endless flood of images, like the strangeness of holding a grandmother's hand while looking at a huge TV on which people are murdering each other on a submarine. Lorna Simpson, Renee Gladman, Robin Coste Lewis and other writers and artists populate this essay, as Sloan grapples with the question of "how to be me and write about nature." To be black, queer and a woman in a natural space that often surpasses our American imagination (the bald eagles are indeed everywhere), but is not without its particular American peril. There are men and guns to consider, and unleashed dogs that bark and run before you can even finish admiring how sweet they looked a moment ago. There are few answers to be had here (What would we do with them anyway?) but I enjoyed the searching for searching's sake.
July 13, 2022
Borealis is Aisha Sabatini Sloan's quick reflection on loneliness, Blackness, and wilderness.
Aisha, a mixed-race Black woman, finds herself in Alaska having chased a girlfriend there after college. She cycles between finding herself in the wilderness of Homer, Alaska to feeling completely out of place, as she is able to easily count and keep track of the very few other Black people she meets in the Northern wilderness. Oddly at home in this world so different from where she came from, Aisha finds meaning and nuance in the loneliness and community of the North.
Told in short spurts of reflective text, Borealis is truly a beautiful read. But the book is quite cryptic in ways that I did not completely understand, which is actually quite sad because reading Sabatini Sloan's writing is truly a pleasure. Borealis is a quick read that I think many - including myself - will enjoy.
Aisha, a mixed-race Black woman, finds herself in Alaska having chased a girlfriend there after college. She cycles between finding herself in the wilderness of Homer, Alaska to feeling completely out of place, as she is able to easily count and keep track of the very few other Black people she meets in the Northern wilderness. Oddly at home in this world so different from where she came from, Aisha finds meaning and nuance in the loneliness and community of the North.
Told in short spurts of reflective text, Borealis is truly a beautiful read. But the book is quite cryptic in ways that I did not completely understand, which is actually quite sad because reading Sabatini Sloan's writing is truly a pleasure. Borealis is a quick read that I think many - including myself - will enjoy.
October 10, 2023
Disjointed, vague, with faint glimmers of promising material throughout on race and human interaction that get lost between moments of banality or unrelatability. I found myself asking: why write a book about nature if you don’t enjoy it? Why write point blank you don’t enjoy a major subject in your own book? It’s frankly just unfortunate.
November 30, 2022
read sparsely over a month--would like to read again, alone, up north somewhere, in a cold space. outside or near windows. contains many many things to seek out, watch, read, listen to afterwards
October 29, 2022
I seriously debated leaving a review, because this is a negative review, and I don't want to be misconstrued (which is easy to do on the internet). So let me preface this by saying that any published work is open to criticism, and that any criticism I might have is in no way directed toward the author of the work as a person, but is instead focused solely on the quality of the product they have produced.
However, in the case of Creative Nonfiction, the line between author and what they produce is more of a tangled web than a clear demarcation. And I would know: I spent years studying CNF in an academic setting. My B.A. is in English with a concentration in Creative Nonfiction (I graduated summa cum laude) and I earned my M.A. in English immediately after with--you guessed it--a concentration in Creative Nonfiction. I graduated that with a nearly 4.0 GPA and earned a High Pass on my final comprehensive essay exam, which was required to earn my degree. I don't say this to invalidate or diminish anyone else's experience with the book, but to help anyone understand that I have a strong connection to and understanding of CNF as a genre, including its portrayal and execution.
All that being said, I have not written a CNF book myself. I am a white woman, not a queer person or a person of color.
While reading, I asked myself: because of my lived experiences, am I missing something here? Is there some contextual or cultural background that allows the author to see through a lens that I can't? But is it not also the duty of the author to bring a reader into that world, that landscape, that climate, and make it as real and meaningful to them as it is to the writer?
When I began reading this book, I went into it with the expectation that it would be a kind of poetry/essay amalgamation reflecting on Alaska as well as Blackness. You read the blurb, same as me:
But what I got instead was an uncommitted and winding narrative that jumped from topic to place without any connective tissue. At any given time, you may be able to find three paragraphs on a page that had anything to do with each other. Given the amount of references to artistic collages, it honestly felt like the author laid out all the various paragraphs of text in a similar way, and instead of grouping them together by topic, she interspersed them to be deliberately as random as possible. There are also a lot of quotes from other authors and artists that tried to create context, and while they all seem tangentially relevant, they become like a single note of music hanging in the air instead of a full melody being played.
I absolutely understand the fragmented and collage aspect of experimental CNF and have taken seminars on it myself. But when you put what could be great lines within the context of "this is what I was doing when I thought it" then it feels like these are notes for a book rather than a cohesive narrative.
Due to this fragmentation, I also found that what could have been explorations into deep relationships, such as the one she has with K but also the pets, animals, landscape, etc., are given the same level of detail and attention as passing acquaintances. This does create an intense feeling of loneliness--and given how many times loneliness is mentioned, I get that its a theme--so I can admit that this is an interesting technique, but it is also a problem to be explored, and that is not what is happening here. Like everything else, these anecdotes are placed randomly, with the author expecting the reader to do the work of finding meaning or understanding.
As someone who loves the genre, I would encourage any writer to explore, find meaning, and generally plum the depths of their experiences themselves, not only because it makes for better writing, but because I know how enriching it can be to one's life. Don't just tell me something is there. Ruminate on it. Give it meaning.
I think this lack of research and reflection is best summed up when the author sees a young man with a rifle stop into the restaurant she's in before departing on a boat. She doesn't know who to ask if she should be freaking out because he's carrying a gun on his back, though she readily admits that 1) there are "no guns" signs on many of the buildings, so she knows that people carry guns around there, and 2) there are also "no guns" signs around Tucson, but she would not have--for some reason she does not explore--feel as nervous about seeing those signs there as she did in Alaska. Additionally, she notes that she doesn't know what he might have the gun for, and assumes that he is off to shoot either at a bear, the water, or wolf pups (because all of that seems perfectly reasonable?)
This suspicion, nervousness, and fear permeate how she sees and interprets everything. She doesn't move through the world easily, which she proposes is a result or reflection of her Blackness or mixed race. She points out every other Black person she comes across in Alaska, but seeing them does not make her feel more at ease. In an entire book centered around the experience of being a person of color in a more hegemonic white area, I don't understand why there isn't more insight into this, rather than just stating what she saw when. It's so frustrating to read something that could have been extremely informative and interesting but instead has thoughts presented like a careless scattering of sand.
One last note, because it bothered me: she assumes that nearly every woman she comes across is a lesbian (or similar) because of how they dress and behave, because lesbians in Tucson and other areas dress and behave similarly, while not taking into account (again, a great opportunity for reflection) that the environment affects clothing choices and behavior. Not every butch-like woman is queer in some way; they're dressing that way because it is Alaska. And yes, I am fully aware and understand that some of these women are friends or acquaintances and have told her outright that they are not straight in whatever way, but not all, and again, it was simply the presentation of this information without any analysis or critique into her own biases that made it frustrating to read.
Sigh.
The reason I'm giving this book more than one star is twofold: I finished it, and generally only reserve one star rating for DNFs, and I can look in from the outside and appreciate that this book is experimental Creative Nonfiction. I understand that this is meant to be a poetry-adjacent look at interpersonal relationships, identity, and landscape. I would never, ever discourage anyone from writing or reading CNF; I wish more people did both. But the reason it doesn't earn more than two stars (aka "it was okay" according to the goodreads scale) is because I don't think that it performed what it set out to do in an intriguing, engaging, or particularly effective way.
However, in the case of Creative Nonfiction, the line between author and what they produce is more of a tangled web than a clear demarcation. And I would know: I spent years studying CNF in an academic setting. My B.A. is in English with a concentration in Creative Nonfiction (I graduated summa cum laude) and I earned my M.A. in English immediately after with--you guessed it--a concentration in Creative Nonfiction. I graduated that with a nearly 4.0 GPA and earned a High Pass on my final comprehensive essay exam, which was required to earn my degree. I don't say this to invalidate or diminish anyone else's experience with the book, but to help anyone understand that I have a strong connection to and understanding of CNF as a genre, including its portrayal and execution.
All that being said, I have not written a CNF book myself. I am a white woman, not a queer person or a person of color.
While reading, I asked myself: because of my lived experiences, am I missing something here? Is there some contextual or cultural background that allows the author to see through a lens that I can't? But is it not also the duty of the author to bring a reader into that world, that landscape, that climate, and make it as real and meaningful to them as it is to the writer?
When I began reading this book, I went into it with the expectation that it would be a kind of poetry/essay amalgamation reflecting on Alaska as well as Blackness. You read the blurb, same as me:
Art about glaciers, queer relationships, political anxiety, and the meaning of Blackness in open space--Borealis is a shapeshifting logbook of Aisha Sabatini Slogan's experiences moving through the Alaskan outdoors.
But what I got instead was an uncommitted and winding narrative that jumped from topic to place without any connective tissue. At any given time, you may be able to find three paragraphs on a page that had anything to do with each other. Given the amount of references to artistic collages, it honestly felt like the author laid out all the various paragraphs of text in a similar way, and instead of grouping them together by topic, she interspersed them to be deliberately as random as possible. There are also a lot of quotes from other authors and artists that tried to create context, and while they all seem tangentially relevant, they become like a single note of music hanging in the air instead of a full melody being played.
I absolutely understand the fragmented and collage aspect of experimental CNF and have taken seminars on it myself. But when you put what could be great lines within the context of "this is what I was doing when I thought it" then it feels like these are notes for a book rather than a cohesive narrative.
Due to this fragmentation, I also found that what could have been explorations into deep relationships, such as the one she has with K but also the pets, animals, landscape, etc., are given the same level of detail and attention as passing acquaintances. This does create an intense feeling of loneliness--and given how many times loneliness is mentioned, I get that its a theme--so I can admit that this is an interesting technique, but it is also a problem to be explored, and that is not what is happening here. Like everything else, these anecdotes are placed randomly, with the author expecting the reader to do the work of finding meaning or understanding.
As someone who loves the genre, I would encourage any writer to explore, find meaning, and generally plum the depths of their experiences themselves, not only because it makes for better writing, but because I know how enriching it can be to one's life. Don't just tell me something is there. Ruminate on it. Give it meaning.
I think this lack of research and reflection is best summed up when the author sees a young man with a rifle stop into the restaurant she's in before departing on a boat. She doesn't know who to ask if she should be freaking out because he's carrying a gun on his back, though she readily admits that 1) there are "no guns" signs on many of the buildings, so she knows that people carry guns around there, and 2) there are also "no guns" signs around Tucson, but she would not have--for some reason she does not explore--feel as nervous about seeing those signs there as she did in Alaska. Additionally, she notes that she doesn't know what he might have the gun for, and assumes that he is off to shoot either at a bear, the water, or wolf pups (because all of that seems perfectly reasonable?)
This suspicion, nervousness, and fear permeate how she sees and interprets everything. She doesn't move through the world easily, which she proposes is a result or reflection of her Blackness or mixed race. She points out every other Black person she comes across in Alaska, but seeing them does not make her feel more at ease. In an entire book centered around the experience of being a person of color in a more hegemonic white area, I don't understand why there isn't more insight into this, rather than just stating what she saw when. It's so frustrating to read something that could have been extremely informative and interesting but instead has thoughts presented like a careless scattering of sand.
One last note, because it bothered me: she assumes that nearly every woman she comes across is a lesbian (or similar) because of how they dress and behave, because lesbians in Tucson and other areas dress and behave similarly, while not taking into account (again, a great opportunity for reflection) that the environment affects clothing choices and behavior. Not every butch-like woman is queer in some way; they're dressing that way because it is Alaska. And yes, I am fully aware and understand that some of these women are friends or acquaintances and have told her outright that they are not straight in whatever way, but not all, and again, it was simply the presentation of this information without any analysis or critique into her own biases that made it frustrating to read.
Sigh.
The reason I'm giving this book more than one star is twofold: I finished it, and generally only reserve one star rating for DNFs, and I can look in from the outside and appreciate that this book is experimental Creative Nonfiction. I understand that this is meant to be a poetry-adjacent look at interpersonal relationships, identity, and landscape. I would never, ever discourage anyone from writing or reading CNF; I wish more people did both. But the reason it doesn't earn more than two stars (aka "it was okay" according to the goodreads scale) is because I don't think that it performed what it set out to do in an intriguing, engaging, or particularly effective way.
November 11, 2022
Aisha Sabatini Sloan is in Homer, Alaska with all her ex-girlfriends, their dogs, and the strangers who glide around the town looking at grocery stores, bald eagles, and glaciers.
Throughout this fragmented essay, Sloan is making a meta collage out of magazine clippings, and describes them to the reader, like a satisfying alignment of her own piecing of random memories, cut sharp and glued. “A collage in the grid of this book acts, for me, as a kind of window.” Isn’t the top of a bald eagle’s head like a collaged white helmet, the american metaphor.
Against this craft of boredom, she also studies carefully the dripping blue glacier paintings of Lorna Simpson. We follow Sloan, wandering through desolate and strange Alaskan landscape for many years, or buying a cold brew, or at the lesbian bar, the lone “mixed girl”, searching for other Black bodies, to see herself. Other Black authors are in conversation, literally and in symbols of half circles: Fred Moten, Wendy S. Walters, John Keene, and Jean Toomer. Another important conversation comes from the correspondence between her and her brother, who is in solitary confinement in prison. The word “solitary” seems really important here. The essay is so centrally about lone figures lost in white static space.
The mundane skirts around in quilts, and the act of paying attention. I like that there is lots of eavesdropping in the book. The convos of strangers are treated like equally important lifted texts as is Anne Carson’s work. “I think my kind of pastoral must include gossip.” I, too, want to watch my past like a movie, so much.
Of course, I read this book while on a trip, in a weird landscape too, maybe the opposite of Alaska: a tourist beach town in Florida in November, steadying over grass-lined beaches with white, cool-to-the-touch sand made out of powdered quartz. I was also listening to podcasts, passing the time in the car from Missouri, and the podcast was about six astronauts living in a dome in Hawaii for a year, pretending to live on Mars. Borealis is about being an alien. I feel the clothes of this experience when I read Sloan’s fragments, her honest collagework draped over the glacier of one stretch of time.
Throughout this fragmented essay, Sloan is making a meta collage out of magazine clippings, and describes them to the reader, like a satisfying alignment of her own piecing of random memories, cut sharp and glued. “A collage in the grid of this book acts, for me, as a kind of window.” Isn’t the top of a bald eagle’s head like a collaged white helmet, the american metaphor.
Against this craft of boredom, she also studies carefully the dripping blue glacier paintings of Lorna Simpson. We follow Sloan, wandering through desolate and strange Alaskan landscape for many years, or buying a cold brew, or at the lesbian bar, the lone “mixed girl”, searching for other Black bodies, to see herself. Other Black authors are in conversation, literally and in symbols of half circles: Fred Moten, Wendy S. Walters, John Keene, and Jean Toomer. Another important conversation comes from the correspondence between her and her brother, who is in solitary confinement in prison. The word “solitary” seems really important here. The essay is so centrally about lone figures lost in white static space.
The mundane skirts around in quilts, and the act of paying attention. I like that there is lots of eavesdropping in the book. The convos of strangers are treated like equally important lifted texts as is Anne Carson’s work. “I think my kind of pastoral must include gossip.” I, too, want to watch my past like a movie, so much.
Of course, I read this book while on a trip, in a weird landscape too, maybe the opposite of Alaska: a tourist beach town in Florida in November, steadying over grass-lined beaches with white, cool-to-the-touch sand made out of powdered quartz. I was also listening to podcasts, passing the time in the car from Missouri, and the podcast was about six astronauts living in a dome in Hawaii for a year, pretending to live on Mars. Borealis is about being an alien. I feel the clothes of this experience when I read Sloan’s fragments, her honest collagework draped over the glacier of one stretch of time.
November 20, 2025
This was Emma bait and I loved it. Discussed it in a dimly lit room of queer ecology grad students with a slideshow of all the visual art references playing, which was perfect. It felt like a collage, like a journal when you read it years later, and like the day I spent wandering Fairbanks alone after returning from a job at an Arctic field station. There really are so many queer women up there. The references worked for me! The ones I knew already made the fabric of the world feel more connected, and looking up the rest felt like just another part of the collage. <3
August 30, 2022
As an essay about invisibility, otherness, being witness, witnessing and loneliness (among other themes) this is a candid and revealing way of writing. Aisha Sabatini Sloan weaves in a story of her nephew amongst the reflections of her own sense of isolation in Homer, Alaska. As someone who grew up in-part in Alaska (on Dena-ina land) it is refreshing to to read the author's repulsion, insult, threat, and fear of a place that is meant to invoke contemplation, awe and even the sublime.
"Borealis" is a testament to the hostilities that exist for certain bodies in the world. Otherness deconstructed. Through considering the glacier as resting point and the works of Lorna Simpson and Adrian Piper (to name a few referenced in these pages) the author grounds us in works that remind us of our isolation and isolated-ness. While the author finds inclusion and acceptance by partners in the queer community (and even then expresses the aggressions that move through certain encounters) this does not allow for the apparent and overbearing mountain of pressure that exists for a person who is not accepted by whiteness (in the author's case, she is Black and of an interracial relationship between her father and mother) to simply exist in Homer, Alaska.
One of my favorite parts of this essay (that was recommended to me by friend and incredible writer, Lara Mimosa Montes) is in reference to Aisha Sabatini Sloan's nephew, who in the telling of his story, it is important to note he is experiencing incarceration.
"In one of his essays my nephew writes of White people, "Their mouths said hi how are you but their facial expressions spoke louder. Exclamation point, question mark, period, period, comma." Of his own body, he writes, "I felt like a question mark at the beginning of a sentence."" pg. 114
A wonderful series and great publication by Coffee House Press.
"Borealis" is a testament to the hostilities that exist for certain bodies in the world. Otherness deconstructed. Through considering the glacier as resting point and the works of Lorna Simpson and Adrian Piper (to name a few referenced in these pages) the author grounds us in works that remind us of our isolation and isolated-ness. While the author finds inclusion and acceptance by partners in the queer community (and even then expresses the aggressions that move through certain encounters) this does not allow for the apparent and overbearing mountain of pressure that exists for a person who is not accepted by whiteness (in the author's case, she is Black and of an interracial relationship between her father and mother) to simply exist in Homer, Alaska.
One of my favorite parts of this essay (that was recommended to me by friend and incredible writer, Lara Mimosa Montes) is in reference to Aisha Sabatini Sloan's nephew, who in the telling of his story, it is important to note he is experiencing incarceration.
"In one of his essays my nephew writes of White people, "Their mouths said hi how are you but their facial expressions spoke louder. Exclamation point, question mark, period, period, comma." Of his own body, he writes, "I felt like a question mark at the beginning of a sentence."" pg. 114
A wonderful series and great publication by Coffee House Press.
November 19, 2021
I love reading Aisha Sabatini Sloan's work. She reminds me what the essay can do. I inhaled Borealis in two evenings and then went back to reread certain passages. I appreciate what Sloan is doing here with climate change, boredom, Blackness in white spaces of both the literal and structural variety, the concept of "nature," terror, and nostalgia: a sort of meta-reflection on reflection. Does that make sense?
And for some reason, I got the idea to do a list of The Zodiac Signs as lines from Borealis:
Aries: "When i don't leap, I wonder what I'm missing, as if worlds only open in the direction of the unknown."
Taurus: "Things I want: to see a whale, to not talk to anyone or be killed, french fries, friendliness."
Gemini: "Writing in nature is becoming a form of self-entertainment, warding off boredom."
Cancer: "It is unfathomably soothing to let the word why erupt out of you until it takes up the space of an entire room. Also unfold."
Leo: "I'm the most interesting thing on the beach."
Virgo: "It feels important to say: a collage can sound better than it looks."
Libra: "I begin to think of boredom as a glacier, a cactus flower that blossoms from your mind, inside of which you can look at the world, a lighthouse, a vantage point, a zone of safety."
Scorpio: "Bjork says that I should not get angry with myself. She will heal me. But she'll be using razor blades."
Sagittarius: "I am a loose body with no clear purpose."
Capricorn: "It was a gorgeous depression of a winter."
Aquarius: "Something happened involving a fisherman and a past life. I can't explain it."
Pisces: "I feel all of my ages now, imagining those selves walking or biking along the water's edge."
And for some reason, I got the idea to do a list of The Zodiac Signs as lines from Borealis:
Aries: "When i don't leap, I wonder what I'm missing, as if worlds only open in the direction of the unknown."
Taurus: "Things I want: to see a whale, to not talk to anyone or be killed, french fries, friendliness."
Gemini: "Writing in nature is becoming a form of self-entertainment, warding off boredom."
Cancer: "It is unfathomably soothing to let the word why erupt out of you until it takes up the space of an entire room. Also unfold."
Leo: "I'm the most interesting thing on the beach."
Virgo: "It feels important to say: a collage can sound better than it looks."
Libra: "I begin to think of boredom as a glacier, a cactus flower that blossoms from your mind, inside of which you can look at the world, a lighthouse, a vantage point, a zone of safety."
Scorpio: "Bjork says that I should not get angry with myself. She will heal me. But she'll be using razor blades."
Sagittarius: "I am a loose body with no clear purpose."
Capricorn: "It was a gorgeous depression of a winter."
Aquarius: "Something happened involving a fisherman and a past life. I can't explain it."
Pisces: "I feel all of my ages now, imagining those selves walking or biking along the water's edge."
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August 6, 2024i have been up since 4 AM i hate the insomnia i have been dealing with recently and i didn't like this book. not everyone has what it takes to be kate zambreno and certainly not everyone has what it takes to be renee gladman. the things i liked most about this book were the renee gladman and fred moten quotes. found the rest of it to be trite and kind of annoying. i was excited about this one so that is sad, but what can you do. i hope that my writing doesn't read like this. i just get really annoyed when writers defamiliarize random stuff in these kinds of creative nonfic/autofic (it's not actually about writing/metatextual enough to be autofic imo it's just creative nonfic which i don't really love most of the time) works for no reason. like "the man watches a video of children on a small screen"... can we just say phone don't piss me off 😭
October 23, 2022
Making the mundane into art
September 7, 2023
Es queda una mica a mig camí de tot.
January 15, 2024
There's a lot to be said about the sort of queer memoir-cum-travelogue as a genre but this is a very successful entry.
June 19, 2024
and she does it again! i’ve never so wanted to see the world through someone else’s eyes
February 13, 2022
4.5 beautiful, contemplative, longform poetry > an essay IMO.
I want to visit Alaska with her soundtrack and wish the book had images of her visual art references.
I want to visit Alaska with her soundtrack and wish the book had images of her visual art references.
June 28, 2023
I'm not sure I understood where she was going with some of it, but she has a very enjoyable voice. I enjoyed the "collage" nature of the book, and the thoughts of a Black woman juxtaposed against so much literal and figurative whiteness. I will definitely seek out more work by the author.
December 22, 2024
Reread December 21, 2024
I am uncertain why I started thinking about this book again in the past few months, but I had became very interested in rereading it again. I even bought it from a used bookstore.
According to my previous review, I originally didn't enjoy it too much. I said it read like poetry, an art form that I had very little experience in. That is no longer the case. I've become quite the fan of poetry and have favorite poets. So when I revisited this book, things became clearer for me, more profound in many ways. I thoroughly enjoyed it and even took notes.
Last time I compared it to a stream of consciousness and I allowed myself to embody that in my note-taking: if someone were to read what I wrote, I doubt they'd understand. (Sloan makes a similar comment about her own writing and if one of her students had written it, it would've confused her.)
***
2.75
I didn't get what I thought I was gonna get outta this. It wasn't bad but it just didn't meet my expectations. Felt very stream of consciousness. As if I was reading someone's journal in a way. Felt half like poetry too, which I struggle with already. But it was a very fast read.
I am uncertain why I started thinking about this book again in the past few months, but I had became very interested in rereading it again. I even bought it from a used bookstore.
According to my previous review, I originally didn't enjoy it too much. I said it read like poetry, an art form that I had very little experience in. That is no longer the case. I've become quite the fan of poetry and have favorite poets. So when I revisited this book, things became clearer for me, more profound in many ways. I thoroughly enjoyed it and even took notes.
Last time I compared it to a stream of consciousness and I allowed myself to embody that in my note-taking: if someone were to read what I wrote, I doubt they'd understand. (Sloan makes a similar comment about her own writing and if one of her students had written it, it would've confused her.)
***
2.75
I didn't get what I thought I was gonna get outta this. It wasn't bad but it just didn't meet my expectations. Felt very stream of consciousness. As if I was reading someone's journal in a way. Felt half like poetry too, which I struggle with already. But it was a very fast read.
January 25, 2023
really appreciated the experimental nature of this, though its meandering nature lost me on occasion. still, there are some remarkably beautiful sentiments throughout.
oh, and i can always appreciate a fellow fan of the oa :)
oh, and i can always appreciate a fellow fan of the oa :)
July 21, 2021
This book is stunning. Read my full review here: https://booksandbakes.substack.com/p/...
November 28, 2021
Coming from Coffee House Press out of Minneapolis, Borealis is the first book commissioned for the Spatial Species series, edited by Youmna Chala and Ken Chen. The series is meant to investigate the ways space is "activated" through language, inspired by Georges Perec's An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris which interrogates themes and questions such as How do we observe where we are? How do space, memory, relationships, history, and future speculations impact or construct our experience of place? Here, non-space and non-happenings are given tender attention, showing that how and what we attend to give meaning to what is generally left unacknowledged: the edges, borders, the empty spaces in area and in time.
Eula Biss, author of On Immunity, a wonderful and expansive inquiry itself, writes, capturing the heart of this at once sprawlingly expansive and tightly contained essay: "The place Borealis takes us to is lodged within a vivid consciousness. Here, the environment is populated by memories of lovers and strangers with guns. Letters from prison arrive in this place, and confinement haunts its wide margins. The soundtrack fades in and out, art is found and made. A landscape has never felt so real to me, so like life." As she says, reading this essay is indeed "an extraordinary experience!"
This is no essay with a stated thesis, with logical argument laid out paragraph by paragraph. Indeed, at times it's much more poetic and pointillistic. At times, it's more a contemplative meditation. And at times, Sloan's wry humor breaks out and disorients, pulling the rug out from under our feet -- or perhaps more accurately, removing the filter of projection we've created. In one passage, spurred by the recollection of Sarah Pallin mentioning how close Russia is to Alaska Sloan writes: "Russia is so close to here. When Sarah Pallin said it, well, you remember that. But I dare you to go to Alaska and look at a map without saying something equally inane." AND, then the twist: "In our minds, which are collapsing, Russia can't possibly be this close. And by Russia, I mean a lot of things." Mic drop! This is just one of many passages that made me have to stop, sit, feel all that such a statement implies. Just this. Just here. Just now.
Elsewhere, she nonchalantly refers to collages she is making (when of course, the whole text is a collage... a collage of collages). Knowing Sloan, I found myself thinking, "I didn't know Aisha made figurative art work!" And I imagined how they might look. And then, with one description, she writes: "I cut out a fragment of fire at night. I spend a long time slicing thin, blue lines, then glue them into a shape like reaching out, as if they are the visual representation of someone's voice, traveling toward a patch of pink smoke, a strip of swamp." Reading, trying to image this visual, and then she ends this paragraph: "It feels important to say: a collage can sound better than it looks" and I can only laugh at the deep truth this line conveys. It's so true of so much of life...
I have the pleasure of knowing Aisha Sabatini Sloan. I met her as a student here in Tucson. She became someone I have deep respect, admiration, and love for. Her writing always transports me and changes me. I love how she sees and thinks -- or at least the part of what she sees and thinks that she's shared, and the myriad connections she draws from her experience hint at something I know as The Web of Indra, which is a deep representation of the interdependent and interpenetrating nature of reality. It is a truism that everyone reads a different book, as we all bring what we know along with our history and experience to any text. And that is even more true with a text as open as this. I am quite aware that my relationship with/to Aisha colors my reading. At one point in time, Aisha was part of a program I created (in part inspired by her and two other women in our sangha) to cultivate diverse voices and perspectives for teaching Buddha Dharma. She and the others all moved on to other pastures; Aisha has found her own way to share the Dharma. It's here to be found if you've the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it.
Eula Biss, author of On Immunity, a wonderful and expansive inquiry itself, writes, capturing the heart of this at once sprawlingly expansive and tightly contained essay: "The place Borealis takes us to is lodged within a vivid consciousness. Here, the environment is populated by memories of lovers and strangers with guns. Letters from prison arrive in this place, and confinement haunts its wide margins. The soundtrack fades in and out, art is found and made. A landscape has never felt so real to me, so like life." As she says, reading this essay is indeed "an extraordinary experience!"
This is no essay with a stated thesis, with logical argument laid out paragraph by paragraph. Indeed, at times it's much more poetic and pointillistic. At times, it's more a contemplative meditation. And at times, Sloan's wry humor breaks out and disorients, pulling the rug out from under our feet -- or perhaps more accurately, removing the filter of projection we've created. In one passage, spurred by the recollection of Sarah Pallin mentioning how close Russia is to Alaska Sloan writes: "Russia is so close to here. When Sarah Pallin said it, well, you remember that. But I dare you to go to Alaska and look at a map without saying something equally inane." AND, then the twist: "In our minds, which are collapsing, Russia can't possibly be this close. And by Russia, I mean a lot of things." Mic drop! This is just one of many passages that made me have to stop, sit, feel all that such a statement implies. Just this. Just here. Just now.
Elsewhere, she nonchalantly refers to collages she is making (when of course, the whole text is a collage... a collage of collages). Knowing Sloan, I found myself thinking, "I didn't know Aisha made figurative art work!" And I imagined how they might look. And then, with one description, she writes: "I cut out a fragment of fire at night. I spend a long time slicing thin, blue lines, then glue them into a shape like reaching out, as if they are the visual representation of someone's voice, traveling toward a patch of pink smoke, a strip of swamp." Reading, trying to image this visual, and then she ends this paragraph: "It feels important to say: a collage can sound better than it looks" and I can only laugh at the deep truth this line conveys. It's so true of so much of life...
I have the pleasure of knowing Aisha Sabatini Sloan. I met her as a student here in Tucson. She became someone I have deep respect, admiration, and love for. Her writing always transports me and changes me. I love how she sees and thinks -- or at least the part of what she sees and thinks that she's shared, and the myriad connections she draws from her experience hint at something I know as The Web of Indra, which is a deep representation of the interdependent and interpenetrating nature of reality. It is a truism that everyone reads a different book, as we all bring what we know along with our history and experience to any text. And that is even more true with a text as open as this. I am quite aware that my relationship with/to Aisha colors my reading. At one point in time, Aisha was part of a program I created (in part inspired by her and two other women in our sangha) to cultivate diverse voices and perspectives for teaching Buddha Dharma. She and the others all moved on to other pastures; Aisha has found her own way to share the Dharma. It's here to be found if you've the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it.
February 2, 2025
This is not an essay. Not because it's personal or experimental or informally written, but because it is fundamentally not purposeful or curious enough to be one. It is a essentially a series of stream-of-consciousness diary entries by someone who's occasionally good at selecting interesting quotes by other people but is too lazy to actually google any of the flora and fauna around her.
As harsh as that might sound, I actually didn't mind this (very slender) book for the first half. It had some undeniably interesting ideas and was compulsively readable, mostly down to its rhythmic sentence structure I tend to associate with reflective literary fiction. Like much of that genre, it runs into the problem of being poetic for the sake of it, rather than actually meaning anything, e.g. "stairs shaped liked language," which is vague enough that you can picture any kind of staircase and say it fits. By the last few pages, any gloss said language had shone on Sloan's half-baked ideas had well and truly rubbed off, and was downright cringey in places. Likewise, any sense of poignancy or insight had also dissipated.
Because it feels like the author really, really did not want to write this - it feels like she pitched it (without doing much research beforehand), it was commissioned, she made multiple moodboards to try and capture a "vibe", she painted a few things so she could use the word 'landscape' which is beloved by English departments enough that hey, that can refer to anything, and at the end what we're left with is this. It could be better, especially because in theory the combination of ideas seems fascinating.
In some ways, Borealis is a fascinating time capsule of the overwhelming focus on identity politics that helped characterise the 'resistance' of the first Trump administration (and, to be clear, is infinitely preferable to the unmasked fascism we're currently witnessing). And being Black and queer in a predominantly white Alaska is interesting, especially under a President that actively emboldens white supremacists. But you need to build upon the insights you gain from that perspective, beyond referencing Black artists such as Lorna Simpson (especially as someone unfamiliar with her artwork until now). By the end of the book, I desperately wanted to Sloan to just look outside herself. Not to embrace the white Alaskans she was scared might murder her, but to see something in the landscape other than herself.
But no, by the second time she says, "I'm the most interesting thing here," it is meant as an act of defiance in itself. This is not a meditation on glaciers. It is, at best, about (dis)connection, and I found it incredibly disappointing that the author couldn't relate glaciers to that in a context where Indigenous people, especially in a place like Alaska, are disconnected from their lands and society at large is disconnected from the very environments we expect to provide from us.
Ultimately, we're left with increasingly lazy prose ("I am looking for metaphors. I am ovulating," would possibly have felt more relatable had it come from a more likeable point of view) and increasingly lazy thoughts ("I've started to visit a white chiropractor...I wonder if my subconscious has me engaging in some kind of colonial S&M," sounds like it comes straight from the Lena Dunham school of edginess. Also, don't participate in dangerous pseudosciences). Hopefully Sloan is writing things she's actually interested in now, because with a bit more effort she's probably worth checking out.
As harsh as that might sound, I actually didn't mind this (very slender) book for the first half. It had some undeniably interesting ideas and was compulsively readable, mostly down to its rhythmic sentence structure I tend to associate with reflective literary fiction. Like much of that genre, it runs into the problem of being poetic for the sake of it, rather than actually meaning anything, e.g. "stairs shaped liked language," which is vague enough that you can picture any kind of staircase and say it fits. By the last few pages, any gloss said language had shone on Sloan's half-baked ideas had well and truly rubbed off, and was downright cringey in places. Likewise, any sense of poignancy or insight had also dissipated.
Because it feels like the author really, really did not want to write this - it feels like she pitched it (without doing much research beforehand), it was commissioned, she made multiple moodboards to try and capture a "vibe", she painted a few things so she could use the word 'landscape' which is beloved by English departments enough that hey, that can refer to anything, and at the end what we're left with is this. It could be better, especially because in theory the combination of ideas seems fascinating.
In some ways, Borealis is a fascinating time capsule of the overwhelming focus on identity politics that helped characterise the 'resistance' of the first Trump administration (and, to be clear, is infinitely preferable to the unmasked fascism we're currently witnessing). And being Black and queer in a predominantly white Alaska is interesting, especially under a President that actively emboldens white supremacists. But you need to build upon the insights you gain from that perspective, beyond referencing Black artists such as Lorna Simpson (especially as someone unfamiliar with her artwork until now). By the end of the book, I desperately wanted to Sloan to just look outside herself. Not to embrace the white Alaskans she was scared might murder her, but to see something in the landscape other than herself.
But no, by the second time she says, "I'm the most interesting thing here," it is meant as an act of defiance in itself. This is not a meditation on glaciers. It is, at best, about (dis)connection, and I found it incredibly disappointing that the author couldn't relate glaciers to that in a context where Indigenous people, especially in a place like Alaska, are disconnected from their lands and society at large is disconnected from the very environments we expect to provide from us.
Ultimately, we're left with increasingly lazy prose ("I am looking for metaphors. I am ovulating," would possibly have felt more relatable had it come from a more likeable point of view) and increasingly lazy thoughts ("I've started to visit a white chiropractor...I wonder if my subconscious has me engaging in some kind of colonial S&M," sounds like it comes straight from the Lena Dunham school of edginess. Also, don't participate in dangerous pseudosciences). Hopefully Sloan is writing things she's actually interested in now, because with a bit more effort she's probably worth checking out.
January 2, 2024
There’s a part of me that isn’t quite clear whether Sloan intended for there to be a center to the book. Like when I think about the arc that often attends to prose, helps shape it, moves the implicit parts so they start to appear like they would have inevitably found one another in the end, I’m not sure whether Sloan has written an arc into this book. Though I’ll admit I thought I would find an arc when I started reading.
And I did? Or I didn’t? And I like the mystery of this structure. Because what is space in writing? Early in the book, Sloan indicates that she’s writing to her nephew, who is in solitary confinement, and she wants to create a space for him. A mental space. A space that would remove him from where he is, so he could occupy a state of mind. I suppose. It’s not clear what this space is supposed to provide for her nephew. But we, as readers, are supposed to understand the benefits that come with this kind of space.
These gestures, these incompletes, these occupations that present themselves in a useful light, though without a stated use, the book is a collection of them. Why is the writer returning to Homer, Alaska? What is the writer’s occupation with her ex-girlfriends? What is the overarching concern she sees in Lorna Simpson’s art? Should it be more useful for her to write about nature? I would argue Sloan is interested in these questions. And she’s interested in not answering these questions.
And, in some way, all these questions are useful ways to question Blackness and how being biracial fits with that. A line of questioning that occurred in many places. Though I would say the conversation she has on the subject is more implicit than explicit. Like quotes from Fred Moten, Renee Gladman, and the art of Lorna Simpson offer fixed points for thinking about what Blackness means. But, for Sloan, the implicit conversation that takes all these fixed points into consideration is not landing on a conclusion. And, from having read Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit: Essays, I feel like conclusions are where I’m always in suspense. The essay “’D Is for the Dance of the Hours” handles conclusion or closure with a sense that accounts for the immense complexity of the essay. And not just with a note of “life is lived without conclusions.” A truth, but not a truth with enough gravity to do the essay justice. Whereas an essay from that same book, “How to Teach a Nightmare” feels too neatly appointed to "reach a conclusion beyond the writer’s reach."
For my reading, I liked how Borealis handled this implicit conversation with self. Especially how much that implicit conversation revolved around ex-girlfriends. Because I imagine how a person comes to see who they are through the eyes of someone they’re intimate with. In many places, Sloan sees herself seeing herself, especially in a town that is as White as Homer, Alaska. Thinking, then, of these close relationships, and how that person would serve Sloan as a lens on herself, especially in relation to Blackness and being biracial, that feels like a larger, lifetime concern. And that, for me, is the conclusive-ish note the book is leading me to.
And I did? Or I didn’t? And I like the mystery of this structure. Because what is space in writing? Early in the book, Sloan indicates that she’s writing to her nephew, who is in solitary confinement, and she wants to create a space for him. A mental space. A space that would remove him from where he is, so he could occupy a state of mind. I suppose. It’s not clear what this space is supposed to provide for her nephew. But we, as readers, are supposed to understand the benefits that come with this kind of space.
These gestures, these incompletes, these occupations that present themselves in a useful light, though without a stated use, the book is a collection of them. Why is the writer returning to Homer, Alaska? What is the writer’s occupation with her ex-girlfriends? What is the overarching concern she sees in Lorna Simpson’s art? Should it be more useful for her to write about nature? I would argue Sloan is interested in these questions. And she’s interested in not answering these questions.
And, in some way, all these questions are useful ways to question Blackness and how being biracial fits with that. A line of questioning that occurred in many places. Though I would say the conversation she has on the subject is more implicit than explicit. Like quotes from Fred Moten, Renee Gladman, and the art of Lorna Simpson offer fixed points for thinking about what Blackness means. But, for Sloan, the implicit conversation that takes all these fixed points into consideration is not landing on a conclusion. And, from having read Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit: Essays, I feel like conclusions are where I’m always in suspense. The essay “’D Is for the Dance of the Hours” handles conclusion or closure with a sense that accounts for the immense complexity of the essay. And not just with a note of “life is lived without conclusions.” A truth, but not a truth with enough gravity to do the essay justice. Whereas an essay from that same book, “How to Teach a Nightmare” feels too neatly appointed to "reach a conclusion beyond the writer’s reach."
For my reading, I liked how Borealis handled this implicit conversation with self. Especially how much that implicit conversation revolved around ex-girlfriends. Because I imagine how a person comes to see who they are through the eyes of someone they’re intimate with. In many places, Sloan sees herself seeing herself, especially in a town that is as White as Homer, Alaska. Thinking, then, of these close relationships, and how that person would serve Sloan as a lens on herself, especially in relation to Blackness and being biracial, that feels like a larger, lifetime concern. And that, for me, is the conclusive-ish note the book is leading me to.
March 25, 2023
I found this book, I think, through a nature book list and it was described as a beautiful and quiet meditation on Blackness, queerness, loneliness and isolation in Alaska, and art.
And it was all those things! Sloan's writing was lovely and I copied down a bunch of passages (below) since I read a library copy. Like many such essays though, I was left sometimes confused by certain connections between thoughts of art/literary references.
Given the short length and vignette style, Sloan doesn't go too deep into any one topic but bounces around and returns to certain threads.
Worth the read if you're into this genre/type of book but nothing that - for me - will stick around.
Favourite Quotes:
“I begin to think of boredom as a glacier, a cactus flower that blossoms from your mind, inside of which you can look at the world, a lighthouse, a vantage point, a zone of safety.” Pg 25
“Something is swimming. I almost wrote, “I am the most interesting thing in this beach.” This is not how I talk, but when there is no Black figure, what am I supposed to be looking at? I think it’s a sea lion.” Pg 58
“I try to decide whether or not to jump across the thick rivulet of water, and begin to imbue the gesture with too much meaning. I decided to go to Homer for the first time while standing on a forked path. When I don’t leap, I wonder what I’m missing, as if worlds only open in the direction of the unknown.” Pg 62
“What is it about the intractability of the past? Why does the mere fact of having been younger once feel so excruciating?” Pg 67
“The log I’m on is spongy. That’s, uh, white moss. Is that a thing? There are dandelions. I don’t mean to be an ass, but I feel again like I’m the most interesting thing on the beach. I mean: a lone Black woman walks out during low tide, begins to film a bald eagle, then runs away screaming.” Pg 93
“I don’t know how to make friends with strangers and am drowning in loneliness.” Pg 96
“Why am I telling you this?” It has something to do with time. When I paint the walls, the change in space says something to the idea of an hour. Or, what I wanted to say was that this has never been a book about glaciers so much as it is about landscape, which can be an internal experience Black women who have been called “strange” by their sisters have had, collectively, and alone.” Pg 112
“I figured I would never go to the chiropractor again because of the history of White supremacy and necks. But somehow, at home, I’ve started to visit a White chiropractor. His head is shaved clean, shiny, and his patients avert their gazes in the hallway, as I do their bumper stickers. We live in the same county, on different planets. Each time I lay down for him to crack my neck, I wonder if my subconscious has me engaging in some kind of colonial S&M. Leaving myself at the mercy of his hands as a weekly gamble. Like I’m running my hands along the edge of something. Taking the temperature of the water between us. Myself the canary." Pg 115
And it was all those things! Sloan's writing was lovely and I copied down a bunch of passages (below) since I read a library copy. Like many such essays though, I was left sometimes confused by certain connections between thoughts of art/literary references.
Given the short length and vignette style, Sloan doesn't go too deep into any one topic but bounces around and returns to certain threads.
Worth the read if you're into this genre/type of book but nothing that - for me - will stick around.
Favourite Quotes:
“I begin to think of boredom as a glacier, a cactus flower that blossoms from your mind, inside of which you can look at the world, a lighthouse, a vantage point, a zone of safety.” Pg 25
“Something is swimming. I almost wrote, “I am the most interesting thing in this beach.” This is not how I talk, but when there is no Black figure, what am I supposed to be looking at? I think it’s a sea lion.” Pg 58
“I try to decide whether or not to jump across the thick rivulet of water, and begin to imbue the gesture with too much meaning. I decided to go to Homer for the first time while standing on a forked path. When I don’t leap, I wonder what I’m missing, as if worlds only open in the direction of the unknown.” Pg 62
“What is it about the intractability of the past? Why does the mere fact of having been younger once feel so excruciating?” Pg 67
“The log I’m on is spongy. That’s, uh, white moss. Is that a thing? There are dandelions. I don’t mean to be an ass, but I feel again like I’m the most interesting thing on the beach. I mean: a lone Black woman walks out during low tide, begins to film a bald eagle, then runs away screaming.” Pg 93
“I don’t know how to make friends with strangers and am drowning in loneliness.” Pg 96
“Why am I telling you this?” It has something to do with time. When I paint the walls, the change in space says something to the idea of an hour. Or, what I wanted to say was that this has never been a book about glaciers so much as it is about landscape, which can be an internal experience Black women who have been called “strange” by their sisters have had, collectively, and alone.” Pg 112
“I figured I would never go to the chiropractor again because of the history of White supremacy and necks. But somehow, at home, I’ve started to visit a White chiropractor. His head is shaved clean, shiny, and his patients avert their gazes in the hallway, as I do their bumper stickers. We live in the same county, on different planets. Each time I lay down for him to crack my neck, I wonder if my subconscious has me engaging in some kind of colonial S&M. Leaving myself at the mercy of his hands as a weekly gamble. Like I’m running my hands along the edge of something. Taking the temperature of the water between us. Myself the canary." Pg 115
Read
June 4, 2024torn between a philosophical / temperamental / intellectual adoration of the travelogue, especially one of a raced/gendered/visibly (?) queer person in an endless summer space, conscious of their blackness in a field of whiteness, and a simmering distrust of essays that collage lit review with atemporal personal rumination—why bring up the same interesting thinkers over & over again only to fragment them and not to clarify & build on & qualify their ideas? why raise the specter of multiple layered summers in the same place if only to obfuscate their chronology? there is a part of me that wants to resist an inherited structure & rigidity of thinking & thus embrace the amorphousness of such a form, its refusal to prove anything, its willingness to think alongside the reader & yield to whatever reflections emerge between the lines, but there is another more cynical part of me that not only sees this as a frustrating refutation of the writer’s ultimate responsibility—to order one’s own thinking in order to transmit it usefully & stylishly to others—but also as an indulgence of 2010s publishing, in which gesturing to lineages of art & culture as ornamentations for the author’s sadness was still trendy. then again maybe i am still too young & green to see the form of this beyond the horizon of my own self-criticism, my sense that i couldn’t get away with the meandering ambiguity that is my instinct & this book’s ethos; maybe i keep wanting to be ensconced by a text & taught by it, when in reality all art can do is offer infinitesimally smaller glimpses at another kind of experience (smaller both in relation to the growing population, the total volume of human possibilities/realities, and to the individual reader’s lengthening life and broadening knowledge), offering an attempt to manage and understand it, and it’s still worthwhile to meet a text that surrenders to its own helplessness without imposing the artifice of narrative or the polemic of argument, plus it can be exciting to witness the rich capaciousness of the essay form at a time when i feel like fiction is the best place to seek pliability in prose … but while reading this i mostly couldn’t shake a degree of distractedness and disappointment which so often intercepted pleasure, except for on a page like this, in which the lyricism unbound by time crystallizes briefly into an incredible breakup scene, so potent & concise that it elevates the rest of the book’s oblique grief: “In the dark kitchen, we lit the incense cone from a German Santa ornament because we could not figure out how else to barter with the unknown. Smoke curled out of his pipe as we moved through phases of rapture: first terror, then concern, and eventually, unthinkably, perhaps because we had stumbled into a feeling of family with one another, a rash of unbridled glee.”
October 26, 2022
“When I paint the walls, the change in space says something to the idea of an hour. Or, what I wanted to say was that this has never been a book about glaciers so much as it is about landscape, which can be an internal experience Black women who have been called “strange” by their sisters have had collectively, and alone.”
Not many people or humans can walk the edge of the Alaskan shore in all the intersections this author feels and displays here in a unique and stunning way; landscape is my song, and I felt this author’s song in a beautiful, poetic way, like the poems in Ama Codjoe’s The Bluest Nude. This is eye opening and truly lyrical, truly an important work of being othered by white supremacist culture and yet, being drawn to the landscape that scares her and rightly so.
One day, Joanna Macy walked into a bookstore in Germany and picked up a copy of The Book of Hours. She reads in German first, then translates: “I live my life in widening circles.” She speaks of orbiting God in a way that makes me hear the word god differently, and I weep alongside the road.
I feel all of my ages now, imagining those selves walking or biking along the water’s edge.
I wrote about Matthew Henson’s journey to Antarctica in a letter to my nephew, who had recently been put into solitary confinement. Something in me positioned the prison cell against the glacier, an immediate and insistent binary. I was newly discovering meditation and interwove the letter with stories from the Anapanasati Sutta about the Buddha’s awakening. I wanted to give my nephew [proselytize] the sensation of space. The glacier made me feel as if I were on the very edge of the planet. One time, I called it “a jewel that adorned my quiet life.” As if freedom of movement could be crystallized, cut, and set into a ring. But ice is a lock. A container of suspended time.
“Long hours spent in the study of any text will reveal inner, unseen contours, an abstract architecture.” John Keene’s Counternarratives
Fred Moten, speaking of the Black outdoors, talks of stopping off on a road trip to hike with his children. But “I could just always hear somebody running.”
I listen to Björk’s song “Hunter” as I move through town. She, along with Chance the Rapper, brings the landscape into a kind of alignment with my nervous system.
At a Q&A once, a student asked what I meant when I wrote about having cried. We handed sentences back and forth, two self-identified criers dialoging in a room full of unspecified others. The student’s face seemed, even then, on the verge. Now I think crying is like touching time. A halfhearted attempt to crash into now.
When I don’t leap, I wonder what I’m missing, as if worlds only open in the direction of the unknown.
Not many people or humans can walk the edge of the Alaskan shore in all the intersections this author feels and displays here in a unique and stunning way; landscape is my song, and I felt this author’s song in a beautiful, poetic way, like the poems in Ama Codjoe’s The Bluest Nude. This is eye opening and truly lyrical, truly an important work of being othered by white supremacist culture and yet, being drawn to the landscape that scares her and rightly so.
One day, Joanna Macy walked into a bookstore in Germany and picked up a copy of The Book of Hours. She reads in German first, then translates: “I live my life in widening circles.” She speaks of orbiting God in a way that makes me hear the word god differently, and I weep alongside the road.
I feel all of my ages now, imagining those selves walking or biking along the water’s edge.
I wrote about Matthew Henson’s journey to Antarctica in a letter to my nephew, who had recently been put into solitary confinement. Something in me positioned the prison cell against the glacier, an immediate and insistent binary. I was newly discovering meditation and interwove the letter with stories from the Anapanasati Sutta about the Buddha’s awakening. I wanted to give my nephew [proselytize] the sensation of space. The glacier made me feel as if I were on the very edge of the planet. One time, I called it “a jewel that adorned my quiet life.” As if freedom of movement could be crystallized, cut, and set into a ring. But ice is a lock. A container of suspended time.
“Long hours spent in the study of any text will reveal inner, unseen contours, an abstract architecture.” John Keene’s Counternarratives
Fred Moten, speaking of the Black outdoors, talks of stopping off on a road trip to hike with his children. But “I could just always hear somebody running.”
I listen to Björk’s song “Hunter” as I move through town. She, along with Chance the Rapper, brings the landscape into a kind of alignment with my nervous system.
At a Q&A once, a student asked what I meant when I wrote about having cried. We handed sentences back and forth, two self-identified criers dialoging in a room full of unspecified others. The student’s face seemed, even then, on the verge. Now I think crying is like touching time. A halfhearted attempt to crash into now.
When I don’t leap, I wonder what I’m missing, as if worlds only open in the direction of the unknown.
November 7, 2025
i really wanted to like this book but unfortunately i didn't.
i am white though so maybe i didn't get everything.
i liked the bits that were a bit clearer, about how she as a black person experiences a place with mostly white people. i also liked some of the quotes.
i didn't like that all the quotes were scattered throughout with no explanation and sometimes barely related to everything else. also if the quotes are the best part of your book, it says nothing good about your book. many metaphors sounded wannabe deep with no actual depth to them. or maybe i simply didn't get it, i don't know. i also found the protagonist unlikeable but maybe that's because she has decided from the start that she dislikes nature and makes no attempt at all to engage with her surroundings. as a white outdoor enthusiast i was interested in learning or getting to understand a little bit how it's like for black people to be among outdoorsy white people and sure there were some moments where it made sense like the scene with the teenager with the gun and the feeling of loneliness underlying everything.
but I've read a lot better writing about nature and blackness e.g. some texts in the cyclista zines. maybe because the contributions there were written by people who like what they do but often feel like an outsider or not quite welcome in the outdoors/ bike scene too.
i am white though so maybe i didn't get everything.
i liked the bits that were a bit clearer, about how she as a black person experiences a place with mostly white people. i also liked some of the quotes.
i didn't like that all the quotes were scattered throughout with no explanation and sometimes barely related to everything else. also if the quotes are the best part of your book, it says nothing good about your book. many metaphors sounded wannabe deep with no actual depth to them. or maybe i simply didn't get it, i don't know. i also found the protagonist unlikeable but maybe that's because she has decided from the start that she dislikes nature and makes no attempt at all to engage with her surroundings. as a white outdoor enthusiast i was interested in learning or getting to understand a little bit how it's like for black people to be among outdoorsy white people and sure there were some moments where it made sense like the scene with the teenager with the gun and the feeling of loneliness underlying everything.
but I've read a lot better writing about nature and blackness e.g. some texts in the cyclista zines. maybe because the contributions there were written by people who like what they do but often feel like an outsider or not quite welcome in the outdoors/ bike scene too.
July 29, 2025
This book made me homesick. It was tangential in a way that felt like it was my own thoughts, but I feel like I was a side character. I can't relate to everything as a white person in a text about a POC in a majority white place, but I can feel the queer ostracization.
"On standby for our demise, and I'm just falling into the trap, watching myself slip, don't want to lose my freedom, but don't want to lose my sanity either. What's one without the other?"
"Because I cannot kill it, I traverse my boredom. The road keeps extending."
"Now I think crying is like touching time"
"Another girlfriend I went to Alaska with seduced me by embodying the personality of the desert"
"You are in a national park. You are with one person but are remembering when you were there with someone else. There is a layering that you don't want to reveal. You have nostalgia connected to someone else. Private memories emerge while you are trying to pretend that something is new." (That one is by Lorna Simpson, not the author)
"My heart constricts because I am sure she does not see an aurora borealis attached to my skull when she looks at me."
"On standby for our demise, and I'm just falling into the trap, watching myself slip, don't want to lose my freedom, but don't want to lose my sanity either. What's one without the other?"
"Because I cannot kill it, I traverse my boredom. The road keeps extending."
"Now I think crying is like touching time"
"Another girlfriend I went to Alaska with seduced me by embodying the personality of the desert"
"You are in a national park. You are with one person but are remembering when you were there with someone else. There is a layering that you don't want to reveal. You have nostalgia connected to someone else. Private memories emerge while you are trying to pretend that something is new." (That one is by Lorna Simpson, not the author)
"My heart constricts because I am sure she does not see an aurora borealis attached to my skull when she looks at me."
May 6, 2023
Aisha Sabatini Sloan writes an ekphrastic essay reflecting on the landscape and art that she experiences over several years, particularly as a summer sojourner in Homer, Alaska. It is a collage of words in short segments that gives us not so much the nature of a place or of a piece of art or writing but more its effect on her: the thoughts, sensations, memories, and connections it evokes. I appreciate her honesty as she depicts her inner landscape at particular moments.
She has introduced me to the work of Lorna Simpson in whose paintings glaciers or ice dominate, and Sabatini Sloan often returns to Simpson's work, examining the existential presence of ice on her own journey as a queer Black artist. Her words: “The glacier made me feel as if I were on the very edge of the planet. . . . As if freedom could be crystallized, cut, and set into a ring. But ice is a lock. A container of suspended time." (p. 12)
I feel her greatest joy when she is creating with paint: “the change in space says something to the idea of the hour." (p. 112)
She has introduced me to the work of Lorna Simpson in whose paintings glaciers or ice dominate, and Sabatini Sloan often returns to Simpson's work, examining the existential presence of ice on her own journey as a queer Black artist. Her words: “The glacier made me feel as if I were on the very edge of the planet. . . . As if freedom could be crystallized, cut, and set into a ring. But ice is a lock. A container of suspended time." (p. 12)
I feel her greatest joy when she is creating with paint: “the change in space says something to the idea of the hour." (p. 112)
November 22, 2022
I'd give this book a 3.5. (I know I rounded down on my rating. Please don't come for me.)
This book had a lot of amazing, hard-hitting lines and passages. It discusses queerness, Blackness, loneliness, and the feeling of invisibility. It does so in a discreet way that can be confusing, by focusing on nature and landscapes, which I found to be clever as it almost made the narrator seem invisible to the reader at times. However, it took me a while to come to this conclusion and I just felt a bit discombobulated while reading it.
I'm also conflicted because Sloan references many other writers and artists, quoting the writers a lot. While it was nice to see, it also felt like a significant chunk of the book was quotes, and I would've liked to see more of her own writing, which I can tell is strong.
I recommend giving it a read and seeing what you can uncover for yourself. It definitely seems like the type of book where you realize something new every time you read it.
This book had a lot of amazing, hard-hitting lines and passages. It discusses queerness, Blackness, loneliness, and the feeling of invisibility. It does so in a discreet way that can be confusing, by focusing on nature and landscapes, which I found to be clever as it almost made the narrator seem invisible to the reader at times. However, it took me a while to come to this conclusion and I just felt a bit discombobulated while reading it.
I'm also conflicted because Sloan references many other writers and artists, quoting the writers a lot. While it was nice to see, it also felt like a significant chunk of the book was quotes, and I would've liked to see more of her own writing, which I can tell is strong.
I recommend giving it a read and seeing what you can uncover for yourself. It definitely seems like the type of book where you realize something new every time you read it.
November 12, 2023
"Why am I telling you this? It has something to do with time. When I paint the walls, the change in space says something to the idea of an hour. Or, what I wanted to say was that this has never been a book about glaciers so much as it is about landscape, which can be an internal experience Black women who have been called 'strange' by their sisters have had collectively, and alone."
This is such a beautiful little book. Aisha Sabatini Sloan draws up a collage of Alaskan small town atmosphere, memories from younger times, landscapes, nature writing and thoughts about art and practice - all from a clear, black and queer point of view.
I really enjoyed the rich images and metaphors, and how seemingly different scenes get drawn together to form a coherent picture. There is a decided calm about it, despite the often darker themes of social isolation, prisons, gun violence, infertility blinking through.
Read it almost in one sitting during a train ride and was immediately pulled in.
This is such a beautiful little book. Aisha Sabatini Sloan draws up a collage of Alaskan small town atmosphere, memories from younger times, landscapes, nature writing and thoughts about art and practice - all from a clear, black and queer point of view.
I really enjoyed the rich images and metaphors, and how seemingly different scenes get drawn together to form a coherent picture. There is a decided calm about it, despite the often darker themes of social isolation, prisons, gun violence, infertility blinking through.
Read it almost in one sitting during a train ride and was immediately pulled in.
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