What do you think?
Rate this book
Notes on Leaving
Notes on Leaving is a debut poetry collection that is every bit as captivating, emotive and razor-sharp as Laisha Rosnau's bestselling first novel The Sudden Weight of Snow . Rosnau's poignant poems address life in a startlingly direct and honest voice, employing a robust combination of jaw-dropping forthrightness and delicately crafted verse.
The language of Notes on Leaving is brusque, bright and instinctively lines and words flow and merge as naturally as they collide head-on. In the world-weary persona of someone who has always found herself on the run ("my mind was farther away than farm and field. . . "), and "prone to breakdowns/ of all kinds," Rosnau energetically conveys sexually charged and angst-ridden desires to urgently abandon a small-town upbringing, among various other lives and identities. She convincingly presents these primal urges as strikingly and sensuously familiar to us all, "tracing a route down your torso, thrumming south,/ the highway swelling with each town, until/ you round the last curve, a crescendo, and cross/ the river to a place where the city meets itself." Cutting through time zones that encompass the rural and urban, the remembered and the forgotten, Rosnau reminds us to "Pay attention to your surroundings," to "watch for potential road-kill," and to "compare scars" along the way.
The language of Notes on Leaving is brusque, bright and instinctively lines and words flow and merge as naturally as they collide head-on. In the world-weary persona of someone who has always found herself on the run ("my mind was farther away than farm and field. . . "), and "prone to breakdowns/ of all kinds," Rosnau energetically conveys sexually charged and angst-ridden desires to urgently abandon a small-town upbringing, among various other lives and identities. She convincingly presents these primal urges as strikingly and sensuously familiar to us all, "tracing a route down your torso, thrumming south,/ the highway swelling with each town, until/ you round the last curve, a crescendo, and cross/ the river to a place where the city meets itself." Cutting through time zones that encompass the rural and urban, the remembered and the forgotten, Rosnau reminds us to "Pay attention to your surroundings," to "watch for potential road-kill," and to "compare scars" along the way.
- GenresPoetry
85 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2004
25 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 27, 2009
Winner of the 2005 Acorn Plantos People’s Poetry Prize (The award recognizes poetry written with the common reader in mind.)
I know what I wanted. Air thrust in and out of lungs like blows, that pure physicality, shortness of breath, chests rising, pupils engorged to take in the peaks around us. Fine licks of sweat, taste of salt on mouths, we would always lead ourselves back to where we started.
After reading this book, I have decided that I am going to read more poetry. In this collection, Laisha Rosnau explores a wide range of themes around leaving and arriving; transit and transitions. The lengthiest poem (8 segments) “Notes on Arrival/Notes on Leaving”, is about leaving behind a man.: 1. it is a transition; over a boundary marked only by a fold in a map…6. leave behind/bands of humming light in the sky so newly dark it is electric with night./when you do, when you leave without him, you will feel the fold in the map as surely as the jolt of tires too fast against a sudden rise in the road./and while 7. his smell/wanes from your skin you find solace in the fact that you have the truck, your movement refracted in sun off metal, a silvered drop sliding down the charted page, memory of his tongue tracing a route down your torso, thrumming south, the highway swelling with each town, until you round the last curve, a crescendo, cross the river’s mouth to a place where the city meets itself on each wave and ripple the water brings in, and 8. forget everything else.
Rosnau’s poetry is direct; yet it flows with a deep intensity. There often seems to be a current of sexual energy running between the lines in Laisha's poetry, no matter what the subject. In “Hestia”: When your sisters left, taken by marriage, your father hired hands, you helped Mother in the kitchen./It would be years before the first half-ton truck drove by your farm but you knew then what you wanted: the control of something so large: to hold the gears in your hand and shift.
Within the themes are memories of childhood, teenage growing pains, love relationships and sexuality. One of my favourite poems is called “How Babies are Made”. It begins with a young girl and her mother reading a book that explains intercourse, very explicitly. The girl asks, “Do grown-ups really do this?” and “How does it feel?” “Very good. If you’re married.”
Your friend’s cat gives birth in a box
under the table on the patio.
You tell Cindy about the way babies are made, the words big
between you. ...Penis
Regina ...until you both wonder
who Muffin married.
You and Cindy are too small
to close the latch on the patio gate.
You watch and scream while King,
the German shepherd, eats
the baby kittens, the sound
of small bones between his teeth
louder than any word you’ve read.
Another favourite is “Request” which begins: As I danced, a man said, I want to see you naked. The poem ends: he never did see me naked – and you might not either. But, let me tell you this: we live in a world saturated with symbolism. Sometimes, it is best to be direct.
Laisha explores landscapes across Canada and overseas; from small towns to cities, spanning decades in time. In “One Hundred Dead Kangaroos” she rides in a van with a couple of men in the front seat and is challenged to a game counting roadkill. They “cap the count at one hundred. I win every time, my eye sharp for different shades of death.” Later, on her own, she sees fewer kangaroos, but she counts the dead, regardless. I will remember the heat between our three bodies cramped in the front seat when one of them asked, “How many points for a dead man?” and I didn’t know how to calculate the answer.
In the final poem, “Montreal 1977”, the first lines are a daughter asking her mother, “What is charismatic?” Her mother’s answer: “Our Prime Minister.” The poem ends with: …the mother explains, Charisma. Confidence, her daughter’s hand hot in hers. That’s what we need, what everyone wants, and the girl takes note.
Notes on Leaving is a slim volume of just over 40 poems, but it is an electrifying debut. There was not one poem I didn’t like. I can’t wait to read Laisha Rosnau’s recently released new collection of poetry, Lousy Explorers.
I know what I wanted. Air thrust in and out of lungs like blows, that pure physicality, shortness of breath, chests rising, pupils engorged to take in the peaks around us. Fine licks of sweat, taste of salt on mouths, we would always lead ourselves back to where we started.
After reading this book, I have decided that I am going to read more poetry. In this collection, Laisha Rosnau explores a wide range of themes around leaving and arriving; transit and transitions. The lengthiest poem (8 segments) “Notes on Arrival/Notes on Leaving”, is about leaving behind a man.: 1. it is a transition; over a boundary marked only by a fold in a map…6. leave behind/bands of humming light in the sky so newly dark it is electric with night./when you do, when you leave without him, you will feel the fold in the map as surely as the jolt of tires too fast against a sudden rise in the road./and while 7. his smell/wanes from your skin you find solace in the fact that you have the truck, your movement refracted in sun off metal, a silvered drop sliding down the charted page, memory of his tongue tracing a route down your torso, thrumming south, the highway swelling with each town, until you round the last curve, a crescendo, cross the river’s mouth to a place where the city meets itself on each wave and ripple the water brings in, and 8. forget everything else.
Rosnau’s poetry is direct; yet it flows with a deep intensity. There often seems to be a current of sexual energy running between the lines in Laisha's poetry, no matter what the subject. In “Hestia”: When your sisters left, taken by marriage, your father hired hands, you helped Mother in the kitchen./It would be years before the first half-ton truck drove by your farm but you knew then what you wanted: the control of something so large: to hold the gears in your hand and shift.
Within the themes are memories of childhood, teenage growing pains, love relationships and sexuality. One of my favourite poems is called “How Babies are Made”. It begins with a young girl and her mother reading a book that explains intercourse, very explicitly. The girl asks, “Do grown-ups really do this?” and “How does it feel?” “Very good. If you’re married.”
Your friend’s cat gives birth in a box
under the table on the patio.
You tell Cindy about the way babies are made, the words big
between you. ...Penis
Regina ...until you both wonder
who Muffin married.
You and Cindy are too small
to close the latch on the patio gate.
You watch and scream while King,
the German shepherd, eats
the baby kittens, the sound
of small bones between his teeth
louder than any word you’ve read.
Another favourite is “Request” which begins: As I danced, a man said, I want to see you naked. The poem ends: he never did see me naked – and you might not either. But, let me tell you this: we live in a world saturated with symbolism. Sometimes, it is best to be direct.
Laisha explores landscapes across Canada and overseas; from small towns to cities, spanning decades in time. In “One Hundred Dead Kangaroos” she rides in a van with a couple of men in the front seat and is challenged to a game counting roadkill. They “cap the count at one hundred. I win every time, my eye sharp for different shades of death.” Later, on her own, she sees fewer kangaroos, but she counts the dead, regardless. I will remember the heat between our three bodies cramped in the front seat when one of them asked, “How many points for a dead man?” and I didn’t know how to calculate the answer.
In the final poem, “Montreal 1977”, the first lines are a daughter asking her mother, “What is charismatic?” Her mother’s answer: “Our Prime Minister.” The poem ends with: …the mother explains, Charisma. Confidence, her daughter’s hand hot in hers. That’s what we need, what everyone wants, and the girl takes note.
Notes on Leaving is a slim volume of just over 40 poems, but it is an electrifying debut. There was not one poem I didn’t like. I can’t wait to read Laisha Rosnau’s recently released new collection of poetry, Lousy Explorers.
August 20, 2012
Good poetry is a journey of discovery where one will find elements of inspiration. As an experimental writer I find nothing more satisfying than reading well written poems. There is a rhythm and a life-force to Laisha's work and I look forward to reading more. Here is a small fragment of a particularly interesting poem that I wanted to share:
From "What Is Taken"(p.82)
"what is lost? How much am I responsible
for giving away? Yes, I followed him
down trails, beside rivers, up slopes,
strained each muscle that moved
me. I followed, feet pounding
a rhythm with his, a series of
spent breaths that would
eventually lead us back
to the place where
we started."
Poetry well worth reading.
October 1, 2008
A great "tough-girl" sort of poetics. I really enjoyed the voice. Some great metaphor in an otherwise 'plain language' sort of style. Conversational, narrative, yet quite a bit of depth to it.
June 2, 2016
i think i liked "part iv; leaving" the best. on the whole, this is a really nice collection
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews