WRP 6: Canada

World Reading Project, Book #6

Canada

Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq, 2018

Tanya Tagaq is an Inuk throat singer and author from Nunavut in Canada. This book has really stuck with me and I think about it frequently several months after reading it. I think she's an incredible writer. I've added several quotes at the end of this post because I can't pick a favorite.

Split Tooth was another hard book to read because of the subject matter: sexual abuse & trauma. It was very empowering though. It's a mix of prose and poetry, and one phrase I keep thinking about from one of the poems was "I do not forgive and forget / I Protect and Prevent." There's some really crazy stuff happening which I read as an alternative to acknowledging the horror of what she's gone through. The Northern Lights impregnate the main character, and when she gives birth... damn, what a vision! One of the strangest scenes I've ever read.

"Lichen smells sweet. The green lichen smells different from black. In the spring you smell last fall’s death and this year’s growth, as the elder lichen shows the young how to grow.The freeze traps life and stops time. The thaw releases it. We can smell the footprints of last fall and the new decomposition of all who perished in the grips of winter. Global warming will release the deeper smells and coax stories out of the permafrost. Who knows what memories lie deep in the ice? Who knows what curses? Earth’s whispers released back into the atmosphere can only wreak havoc."

"The simple truth is we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe. We are the fingertips of the force that drives the stars, so do your job and FEEL."

"I realize that birds see in a completely different way than we humans do. We are slow and lumbering, our language is deep and muddy. Our confinement to the ground elicits pity. They look at us as we look upon the trees, slow but full of longevity. The trees look at the rocks that way. Rocks look at the mountains that way. Mountains look at the water that way. Earth looks at the sun that way. Everyone has an elder."

"A strange feeling washes over me, something predatory. I have caught the scent of fear. I can smell fear and it excites me. Bloodlust but more like Spiritlust. The fear talks to my teeth and wants them to grow large and pointed. The fear talks to my spine and tells it to be near to the earth, because you can hide your belly that way. The fear talks to my eyes and tells them to see food in the veins of necks."

"What keeps you alive in crisis can kill you once you are free."