The heart, the unborn child, even death has a song in these pages. Her language is so dense, so daring, so rich. Who else but Rachel Rose can describe the summer sun as slipping into the ocean "like a placenta in a basin," or a bat as "a black ball of yarn with two hooks." Read this book and you'll discover "The other use for fire."
-- Lorna Corzier on Song & Spectacle

“Candid, heartfelt, melodious, Rachel Rose’s poems have the virtue of standing at once close to their subject and at a wise remove. Her voice travels intimately into regions of death, love, suffering, and exaltation; meanwhile, that same voice performs the role of chorus and spirit-guide, sagely commenting on the travails of her embroiled protagonists.”
-- Wayne Koestenbaum on Song & Spectacle

"She is known as a poet whose work openly speaks out against abuse, and her second collection is no less provocative than her first...Rose's fury is as masterful as it is humane, her poetry as haunting as it is vibrant."
-- Clarice Foster, The Globe and Mail, April 20, 2006

"...wit with teeth.”
-- Marion K. Stocking, Beloit Poetry Journal, Vol. 52, Number 2, Winter 2001-02, review of Best American Poetry 2001

“…not a work for the faint of heart…What is amazing is that Rose is able to speak of the unspeakable in such an unspeakably beautiful way.”
-- Ronnie R. Brown, Canadian Bookseller Vol 22