Cicely’s Writing
Burning Sugar
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.
WHAT WE’VE LEARNED: A YEAR FIGHTING WHITE SUPREMACY IN A PANDEMIC
What We’ve Learned is our exciting debut e-book. This resource authored by the Bakau team and a plethora of incredible guest writers explores the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and our responses from an equity, accessibility and justice-informed lens.
From virtual accommodations and mental health support to mobilization around systemic racism, this past year has presented so many proactive and innovative solutions to working through a time of collective crisis.
As we think about the “New Normal”, we’re inspired and optimistic about the potential for these teachings to stay with us.
COLONIALITY AND RACIAL (IN)JUSTICE IN THE UNIVERSITY
Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University examines the disruption and remaking of the University at a moment in history when white supremacist politics have erupted across North America, as have anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. Situating the university at the heart of these momentous developments, this collection debunks the popular claim that the University is well on its way to overcoming its histories of racial exclusion.
QUEER LITTLE NIGHTMARES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF MONSTROUS FICTION AND POETRY
The fiction and poetry of Queer Little Nightmares reimagines monsters old and new through a queer lens, subverting the horror gaze to celebrate ideas and identities canonically feared in monster lit. Throughout history, monsters have appeared in popular culture as stand-ins for the non-conforming, the marginalized of society. Pushed into the shadows as objects of fear, revulsion, and hostility, these characters have long conjured fascination and self-identification in the LGBTQ+ community, and over time, monsters have become queer icons.
In Queer Little Nightmares, creatures of myth and folklore seek belonging and intimate connection, cryptids challenge their outcast status, and classic movie monsters explore the experience of coming into queerness. The characters in these stories and poems - the Minotaur camouflaged in a crowd of cosplayers, a pubescent werewolf, a Hindu revenant waiting to reunite with her lover, a tender-hearted kaiju, a lagoon creature aching for the swimmers above him, a ghost of Pride past - relish their new sparkle in the spotlight. Pushing against tropes that have historically been used to demonize, the queer creators of this collection instead ask: What does it mean to be (and to love) a monster?
AFRICANTHOLOGY: PERSPECTIVES OF BLACK CANADIAN POETS
Truth spoken plainly and powerfully is difficult to dismiss and impossible to ignore. Edited with purpose by Greg Frankson, AfriCANthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets brings together some of Canada's most influential dub, page, and spoken word poetic voices and gives them space to speak freely about their personal journeys in piercing verse and unapologetic prose. Just as individual experiences of Blackness are diverse across Canada, each contributor recounts aspects of navigating their unique personal, professional, and artistic paths in Black skin with fearless candour and audacious forthrightness. Unforgettable in its charged emotional potency and stirring in its unrelenting urgency, AfriCANthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets is a stunning tour de force by a celebrated gathering of truthtellers that demands we comprehensively reassess the present and reimagine the future of Blackness in Canada.
AFRIKAN WISDOM: NEW VOICES TALK BLACK LIBERATION, BUDDHISM, AND BEYOND
Afrikan Wisdom is a collection of 30 spiritual essays written by an eclectic group of inspirational Black thought leaders and teachers who reflect on the unique experience of being Black in the world today. Author and editor Valerie Mason-John (Vimalasara) has created an anthology whose aim is to instill readers with the knowledge, awareness, validation, and spiritual tools needed to nurture their individual and collective liberation. While centering on the Black Buddhist experience, essays included in this volume also branch out to include other spiritual traditions and views.