Song and Spectacle, the third collection by award-winning poet Rachel Rose, is composed of fierce hymns to the particular and universal struggles of birth, passion and loss, and the paradoxical quest for non-attachment in a treacherous, unpredictable and yet deeply beloved world.

Rose delves into the world of myth, using the stories of Daphne and Peneus, Shamhat and Enkidu and Grendel's mother to create new allegories for our times. Her poems also explore the aftereffects of suicide on those left behind, the truths of lesbian motherhood and the exquisite splendour of the natural world. Thus, even as she celebrates the cherry trees that ". . . create a spectacle, tossing their wet confetti/ at the window. A child's hair falls out/ on her pillow. Blood pools under the skin of the sky," she holds always the synchronous reality of beauty and pain, death and birth, love and loss, at the heart of her poetry. This hard-won knowledge makes her world and her words unforgettable.

Rachel Rose is the author of four collections of poetry and a memoir, The Dog Lover Unit: Lessons in Courage from the World’s K9 Cops (St. Martin’s Press), which was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis award for best non-fiction crime book in 2018. She is also the recipient of the Bronwen Wallace Award for fiction from The Writers’ Trust, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, a 2014 and 2016 Pushcart Prize and a 2016 nomination for a Governor General’s Award. She is the Poet Laureate Emerita of Vancouver, poetry editor at Cascadia Magazine and a contributor for Maisonneuve Magazine. Rose’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications including The Globe & Mail, American Poetry Review, Poetry, Malahat Review, Rattle, New Quarterly, Best Canadian Poetry, Monte Cristo Magazine and the Vancouver Sun. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

Rachel Rose's profile page