REVIEWS

"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, 2005

“And I admire Rachel Rose’s pair of poems on “What We Heard About the Japanese” and “What the Japanese Perhaps Heard,” a shrewd and subtle anatomy of cultural stereotyping—wit with teeth.”

 “...and your book, which I have  been savouring. It’s  exquisitely crafted and very moving, form and content  always  gloriously harmonious...So I thank you, as a poet and as a  teacher.”

--Stephanie Bolster

“Rose’s is among the most striking and beautiful poetry I’ve read in a long time.”

--University of Toronto Quarterly Vol 70:1 Winter 2000/2001

“Rachel’s books Giving My Body to Science and Notes on Arrival and Departure combine daily life with political events in ways that illuminate both. Her ideas and her music are intricate and fascinating. I’m grateful for these poems.”

--Peggy Shumaker

“Ms. Rose is an accomplished writer who manages to unfold her main character’s darkly poetic vision with a great deal of sophistication. Very engaging.”

--Robert Priest,
Bronwen Wallace Jury Member

“Primarily, however, Rose’s strength lies in her ability to illicit emotion, without doing so gratuitously. Her poems are intimate and impacting, with craft but without device. Giving My Body to Science is unforgettable.”

--Siren,
Volume 5 #1

“…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.”

“I’m very grateful to you for your graceful, sensitive writing.”

“Her talent for cool observation is expressed in language uncoloured by sentimentality.”

--John Barton,
Arc 46, Summer 2001

“(T)extured, bold and intimate…Rachel Rose,” the jury added, “is a poet of great promise and ability.”

--Quebec Writers’ Federation A.M. Klein Jury

"Fierce poems speaking out against the anonymity enforced by indifference, abuse, and sheer mortality. Fierce in their plain speaking, but not at all plain in their musicality. A lushness of imagery, passionate cadences, a voice that witnesses pain even as it celebrates love in all its guises. Rachel Rose has written an extraordinarily clear-eyed first book."

--Daphne Marlatt

"In images both harrowing and beautiful, always 'Luminescent/under the meat', this work moves me profoundly, as it disturbs."

--Mary di Michele