In this incendiary debut
collection, activist and poet Cicely Belle Blain intimately revisits familiar spaces in
geography, in the arts, and in personal history to expose the legacy of
colonization and its impact on Black bodies. They use poetry to illuminate their activist work: exposing
racism, especially anti-Blackness, and helping people see the connections
between history and systemic oppression that show up in every human
interaction, space, and community. Their poems demonstrate how the world is both beautiful and cruel, a truth
that inspires overwhelming anger and awe-all of which spills out onto the page
to tell the story of a challenging, complex, nuanced, and joyful life.
In Burning Sugar,verse and epistolary, racism and resilience, pain and
precarity are flawlessly sewn together by the mighty hands of a Black, queer
femme.
This book is
the second title to be published under the VS. Books imprint, a series curated
and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya, featuring
work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of colour.
