A diasporic collection of essays on music, memory, and motion.

In this powerful and deeply personal essay collection, Gloria Blizzard, in an international diasporic quest, moves up and down an urban subway line; between Canada and Trinidad; to and from a hospital emergency room; back and forth in time — and as a descendent of Africa living in the Americas, negotiates the complexities of culture, geography, race, and language. Through food, music, dance, and family history, Blizzard explores the art of belonging — to a family, a neighbourhood, a group, or a country. Using traditional narrative and the tools of poetry, Blizzard’s essays hover at the crossroads, in the spaces where art, science, and spirit collide. The intimate becomes universal, the questions are all relevant, and the answers of our times require a sleight of hand — the holding of simultaneous and overlapping worlds.

Gloria Blizzard is an award-winning writer and poet, and a Black Canadian woman of multiple heritages, living on the Indigenous lands of the Americas. Her essays, reviews, and poetry have been published widely. She has an MFA from the University of King’s College and currently resides in Toronto.

Gloria Blizzard's profile page

Jumping from poignant childhood moments to reflections of her adult life, Blizzard’s narrative essays contort the linearity of time to explore how memories are continuously reshaped by time that has passed, time that is here, and time that has not yet arrived. Her play with memory making is also accompanied by reflections on how formal education, both in the Caribbean and in Canada, is rooted in colonialism. Not afraid to directly address racism and call out false allies, Blizzard also does not shy away from exploring the complex emotions, including tiredness, sadness, and anger, arising from a society that marginalizes Black women while making them objects of attention. Through exploring these dichotomies of visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, stillness and movement, Blizzard delivers a thought-provoking collection that will appeal to those interested in questioning cultural archives, national identity, and personal legacies.

Booklist

Mesmerizing, lyrical, and cadenced, Gloria Blizzard’s essays move like music.

Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Art of Leaving

Gloria effortlessly weaves elements of her life — its challenges and its gifts — into contemporary conversations about identity, feminism, the diaspora, art, and belonging.

Lorri Neilsen Glenn, author of The Old Man in Her Arms

Gloria Blizzard’s collection of essays is as captivating and lovingly written as any of her songs or poems. From identity and belonging to feminism and food, these personal essays present complexities, challenges and reflections that will appeal to a wide range of readers.

Ms. Magazine