Burning Sugar

In this incendiary debutcollection, activist and poet Cicely Belle Blain intimately revisits familiar spaces ingeography, in the arts, and in personal history to expose the legacy ofcolonization and its impact on Black bodies. They use poetry to illuminate their activist work: exposingracism, especially anti-Blackness, and helping people see the connectionsbetween history and systemic oppression that show up in every humaninteraction, space, and community. Their poems demonstrate how the world is both beautiful and cruel, a truththat inspires overwhelming anger and awe-all of which spills out onto the pageto tell the story of a challenging, complex, nuanced, and joyful life.

In Burning Sugar,verse and epistolary, racism and resilience, pain andprecarity are flawlessly sewn together by the mighty hands of a Black, queerfemme.

This book isthe second title to be published under the VS. Books imprint, a series curatedand edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya, featuringwork by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of colour.