Song and Spectacle

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.