A Mother Apart -- the abandonment of Staceyann Chin made her an enviable mother
Renowned for performances in Def Poetry Slam and hit solo shows like MotherStruck!, Staceyann Chin radically re-imagines the essential art of mothering.
A Mother Apart poster Credit: National Film Board of Canada
“My mother’s leaving me was the first wound,” Staceyann Chin.
In a remarkable story of healing and forgiveness, Jamaican-American poet and LGBTQ+ activist Staceyann Chin, explores all sides of the question, how do you raise a child when your own mother abandoned you? Especially when everyone around you silences your trauma. And, decades pass before you realize that what happened to you was not your fault.
In the documentary A Mother Apart, Chin describes herself as a woman, poet, writer, mother, dissenter and speaker of truth. But she never calls herself a daughter.
Renowned for performances in Def Poetry Slam and hit solo shows like MotherStruck!, Chin radically re-imagines the essential art of mothering.
In fact, Chin admits that the process of writing MotherStruck! was actually the most time she ever spent with her mother, Hazel, who fled Jamaica for Montreal, Canada and a better life.
Hazel made that conscious choice to leave Chin when she was less than one month old. Chin and her older brother were raised by their maternal grandmother, Bernice, who lived in Lottery, Jamaica. Eventually, Chin is sent to relatives and foster homes in Paradise.
Although Chin was abandoned by her parents and raised by her Bernice, she was never a ‘barrel child.’
Barrel children were Jamaican children left behind to be raised by their grandmothers while their parents’ established lives in countries where they could have a better standard of living.
The children left behind would receive care packages from their mothers. These barrels filled with clothes, shoes, food and school supplies let children know they were not forgotten.
Chin never received a barrel from her mother and saw her for two short weeks before Hazel disappeared again when Chin was nine years old.
While attending university, Chin came out as gay. Soon after she was corralled into a washroom by 12 young men intent on sexually assaulting her. A fortuitous intervention allowed Chin to escape and two weeks later She moves to Brooklyn, New York vowing never to be silent again.
In her twenties Chin briefly reunites with her mother and Chin’s younger sister, Laura.
While Chin always wanted to have a family, life -- or rather death -- got in the way. It wasn’t until Chin was 40 that she became mother to Zuri born in 2012. In various African languages Zuri means beautiful, bright, light and in Hebrew means ‘my rock.’ And, Zuri definitely manifests everything inspiring and important to Chin who adores her daughter and respects her individuality.
During the COVID pandemic Chin decides to reconnect with her elusive mother. Her adventure takes her to the suburbs of Montreal where neighbours recall a lovely young Hazel who captivated their imaginations and had one young daughter – whom they mistakenly assume was Chin.
Yet, no one is really sure where Hazel went after she left the neighbourhood.
Eventually, Chin travels to Cologne, Germany where she finds Hazel and Laura, now a grown woman. Chin discovers that the wonderful life she envisioned her sister living with their mother was complete fiction that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Healing for Chin, with the help of Zuri, happens over the course of a year spent living in Jamaica with a friend. That’s when you see the loving interaction between mother and daughter that Chin most desperately longed for with the elusive Hazel.
Poet, actor, and performing artist Chin is the author of the new poetry collection Crossfire: A Litany For Survival, the critically acclaimed memoir The Other Side of Paradise, cowriter and original performer in the Tony Award–winning Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, and author of the one-woman shows Hands Afire, Unspeakable Things, Border/Clash, and MotherStruck! Chin’s poetry has been featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post. She proudly identifies as Caribbean, Black, Asian, lesbian, a woman, and a resident of New York City, as well as a Jamaican national.
Toronto-based filmmaker, writer and educator, Laurie Townshend was raised by a Jamaican mother who was the family’s eloquent griot. Her films centre on the human capacity to transform small acts of courage into quiet revolutions as seen in the dramatic short The Railpath Hero (2013, TIFF Black Star Festival, starring Stephan James), the unscripted series Human Frequency Streetdocs (2014) and the award-winning short doc Charley (2016). A Mother Apart is Laurie’s first feature-length film.
A Mother Apart is an emotionally sweeping tale of healing and forgiveness. Chin is a force to be reckoned with as a Jamaican-American poet, LGBTQ+ activist and lone parent.
In an extraordinary tale of grace and forgiveness, Townshend profiles one woman’s inspired and deeply intentional parenting.
A healing journey spanning four generations, the film is punctuated with vivid animation, imagery from personal archives and excerpts from Staceyann’s arresting live performances. Her singularly intersectional voice, showcased in the legendary Def Poetry Slam and hit solo shows like MotherStruck!, infuses A Mother Apart with deep compassion and commanding intelligence.
A Mother Apart screens June 1, 2024 at 1:30 pm. at TIFF Lightbox, 350 King St. West, Toronto.
A Mother Apart (88 minutes)
Feature Documentary
English, German
This 2024 film landed the #3 spot in the audience vote at Hot Docs.
Awards and Festivals
World Premiere - Official SelectionHot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, Canada (2024)
Official Selection Inside Out (2024)
An Oya Media Group and NFB co-production