The blooming of Rachel
September 23rd, 2015
In 2014, Rachel Rose was appointed Poet Laureate of Vancouver until 2017 on the strength of her relatively small but distinguished output that has been accorded numerous other awards [see below] and critical acclaim.
Now Rachel Rose’s fourth collection, Marry & Burn (2015), has been described as “a searing collection of poems on the subjects of love, loss and addiction.” In addition to intimate struggles, she writes about the unexpected heartache of losing an entire hive to the global bee epidemic and the reconciliation process engendered to heal the wounds of racism in Canada with regards to mistreatment of First Nations constituencies.
Easily one of the most important poets to emerge in B.C. in the early 21st century, Rose has twice received Pushcart Prizes (2014, 2016) and won the Pat Lowther Award and the Audre Lorde Award for her third collection, Song & Spectacle (2012). Awarded since 1976 from the U.S., a Pushcart Prize honours the best “poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot” published by small presses over a preceding year. Her poem ‘White Lilies’ will appear in another Pushcart anthology next year.
A dual Canadian/American citizen, Rachel Rose returned to Vancouver with her family after many years in Seattle, Montreal, and Japan.
Rachel Rose was also the librettist for an opera about forbidden love and fundamentalism, When the Sun Comes Out, that premiered in Vancouver in 2013 and was remounted in Toronto in 2014. Having been affiliated with the SFU Writers Studio, Rose has also been published in journals in the U.S. and Canada, including Verse, Poetry, This Magazine, The Malahat Review and The Best American Poetry.
DATE OF BIRTH: September 20, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH: Vancouver, B.C.
OTHER AWARDS: Best American Poetry 2001, A.M. Klein 2000 Award for Poetry, Finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award and the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal. Winner of the 1997 Bronwen Wallace Award for Fiction and the 1993 Peterson Memorial Prize for Poetry.
BOOKS:
Giving My Body to Science (McGill/Queen’s University Press, 1999)
Notes on Arrival and Departure (McClelland & Stewart, 2005)
Song and Spectacle (Harbour, 2012) $18.95 978-1-55017-585-1
Marry & Burn (Harbour 2015) $18.95 978-1-55017-718-3
Bravo to Rachel Rose, a poet to be admired and studied. Her book project for 2016 on Food — by Vancouver area poets and writers will be an informative and delightful volume.
Just check out her website, attend her readings and get your hands & eyes on her books! Enjoy.