{"product_id":"notes-on-arrival-and-departure-isbn-9780771075919","title":"Notes on Arrival and Departure","description":"Rachel Rose follows her award-winning first book with a dazzling, urgent collection of new poems that look unflinchingly at our errors and our longings, in images that range from the disturbing to the spectacular. Anchoring the collection is a rich, unsentimental suite of lyrics on the journey of pregnancy and new motherhood. These poems are humanist, lushly imagined, and compellingly voiced.\u003cb\u003eRachel Rose\u003c\/b\u003e’s first book of poetry, \u003ci\u003eGiving My Body to Science\u003c\/i\u003e, was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal, and won the Quebec Writers’ Federation A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. She currently resides in Vancouver.SEPTEMBER LETTERS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Marjan,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlind lion, face-­scarred, rib-­thin,\u003cbr\u003epacing the bars of your rusty cage. And Donatella,\u003cbr\u003edear old bear, snout-­wound suppurating\u003cbr\u003efrom the sword-­slash of a Taliban,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003edid you not hear?\u003cbr\u003eThe North American experts have been called in.\u003cbr\u003eHollywood mobilizes its tax-­deductible donations.\u003cbr\u003eOnce again our better inclinations\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehave been misguided, abused. Other keepers\u003cbr\u003eare flown in, deals made with other zoos.\u003cbr\u003eWhose fault that two animals are front-­page news,\u003cbr\u003ewhile the orphans are so numerous they remain anonymous?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDear Mammals, what was unbearable\u003cbr\u003ehas become the way things are.\u003cbr\u003eThe Buddha is blasted to gravel,\u003cbr\u003eand we must make sense of an airplane becoming flame\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eagainst the sharp hip of a building.\u003cbr\u003eSome try simply to recall the name of a bear\u003cbr\u003e— \u003ci\u003eO Donatella!\u003c\/i\u003e who once raised her broad palms in the air\u003cbr\u003eand solemnly danced\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efor the children of Kabul,\u003cbr\u003egirls clapping boldly next to their brothers,\u003cbr\u003ethe sun sharing its warm gifts\u003cbr\u003ewith them all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Mother,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am writing without feeling, having flown from France\u003cbr\u003eSeptember 11th, your grandson bouncing\u003cbr\u003ein his caa-­approved car seat, safe as milk.\u003cbr\u003eI’m sorry you worried we had been exploded\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethose long hours you spent on hold,\u003cbr\u003econsulting with the airlines,\u003cbr\u003ehaving no idea where our plane was.\u003cbr\u003eWe knew nothing until we began to descend\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand the pilot shared what he had kept for hours,\u003cbr\u003ewhere we were, where we would \u003ci\u003enot\u003c\/i\u003e be going.\u003cbr\u003eI thought, insanely, of buying a car,\u003cbr\u003eof never flying again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe airport was a mob of stranded tourists,\u003cbr\u003ehushed sobs. We were stuck till 3:00 a.m.,\u003cbr\u003eyour grandson mercifully conked out on the luggage.\u003cbr\u003eMy lover comes from another country —\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe would have to fly again, and soon. Just after 3:00, we got a room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Meena,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou began the women’s revolution;\u003cbr\u003eyou were its first martyr.\u003cbr\u003eI can neither forget you nor tell your story.\u003cbr\u003eI’ll talk instead of myself,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe modern, post-­postmodern method, one soul\u003cbr\u003ethat cannot ever know another,\u003cbr\u003eor imagine another’s dreams.\u003cbr\u003eWhere I live, one in four Canadians\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eidentifies as a poet. Where I live,\u003cbr\u003enobody reads poetry. Thank you for the poem\u003cbr\u003ein which you wrote: \u003ci\u003eI’m the woman\u003cbr\u003ewho has awoken.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou wrote: \u003ci\u003eI’ve said farewell to all golden bracelets.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then you were shot.\u003cbr\u003eWhat did I care\u003cbr\u003euntil I came that close to terror?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have dreamed a country of women\u003cbr\u003eliving in rooms with blackened windows.\u003cbr\u003eI have imagined the blue cotton weave\u003cbr\u003ethrough which\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eyou viewed the world.\u003cbr\u003ePictured the soul grown thin, thin,\u003cbr\u003esunlight filtered through mesh.\u003cbr\u003ePictured the bones’ hollow piping,growing more porous each year,\u003cbr\u003emore troubled. Framed your sisters\u003cbr\u003ein their brightest moments, your sisters at home\u003cbr\u003eblooming in darkness. Remember?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe way you flourished, nipples sweet as olives,\u003cbr\u003eburied alive when the gardener grew jealous.\u003cbr\u003eThe way you fought: a burqa to conceal a camera,\u003cbr\u003ea poem to reveal a woman’s war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeena, forgive me for not writing before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Isabelle,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe pilot clears his throat, the overhead\u003cbr\u003eclicks dead. The child between us sleeps on.\u003cbr\u003eFingertips touching, we lean back on our descent\u003cbr\u003ewith nothing to say. We barely bounce\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eon the runway. I lean into you, spiralling back\u003cbr\u003ein time, back to last week, climbing Mont Saint-­Michel\u003cbr\u003ewith our son swinging between us. Beneath\u003cbr\u003ethe thin blue American Airlines blanket,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhen few words are necessary,\u003cbr\u003ewe hold on. Isabelle, thank you\u003cbr\u003efor these eight years, so good\u003cbr\u003eso far, for giving your seat to the stewardess in tears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank you for the urgency of your love,\u003cbr\u003eknowing we are not safe, though still safe enough,\u003cbr\u003ein a world where our love is answered with stones.\u003cbr\u003eWe are decadence incarnate,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003etwo women in comfortable shoes, we kiss cheeks\u003cbr\u003elike sisters when we must, speak each other’s endings,\u003cbr\u003elive in relative comfort. Isabelle,\u003cbr\u003ethe weight of the heart under siege takes its toll.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThank you for not letting go.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Anonymous Woman Executed for Adultery in the United Nations—Funded Sports Stadium,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDear — What was your name? Exactly when\u003cbr\u003ewere you caught? Did you know where\u003cbr\u003eyou were being taken, does your family\u003cbr\u003eknow your grave plot?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDid your lover cry out, did he rend his clothes in secret?\u003cbr\u003eI know the crowd watched carefully as you tripped\u003cbr\u003eon the hem of your robes in the hot air\u003cbr\u003ebefore you were shot, and fell,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ein the middle of the arena to a noise, not applause,\u003cbr\u003elike cicadas thrumming. I saw the film, the kohl-­dark ingots,\u003cbr\u003eyour brain’s last clotted thoughts\u003cbr\u003espilled onto your hair and shrouded head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI saw your burqa in the dry air trembling with blood.\u003cbr\u003eBut I never saw your lover. Please, let it have been love,\u003cbr\u003enot something violent, grown malignant\u003cbr\u003ewithin you. Did he get away with murder?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Anonymous Woman Who Filmed the Execution,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd Dear — On what food did you grow\u003cbr\u003eimpossibly brave? You stood\u003cbr\u003ein the crowd at the stadium. God has many names\u003cbr\u003eand none of them mattered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou dared: God was your camera.\u003cbr\u003eGod hid under the dark-­woven folds\u003cbr\u003eof your required robe. God’s eye\u003cbr\u003ewas made to record\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewith a small noise, hanging in the film\u003cbr\u003ebetween your breasts, a woman’s\u003cbr\u003eexecution curled in the undeveloped roll,\u003cbr\u003eas though death had not yet\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eoccurred. As if, were the film never processed,\u003cbr\u003eyou could switch past to future, correct\u003cbr\u003ethe present imperfect. She would not have been shot.\u003cbr\u003eYou would be at home, peeling an orange.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDear Executioner,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat were you thinking as you stood\u003cbr\u003ebehind her, as she knelt\u003cbr\u003eand you carried out the sentence,\u003cbr\u003egun in hand, followed through\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eon God’s command? Did you\u003cbr\u003ethink of your wife or simply of the task?\u003cbr\u003eThe wind rose, briefly fingered your hair.\u003cbr\u003eGod is the sentence and the execution, but – Dear,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGod is the lovers’ brave infidelity, too, singing\u003cbr\u003elong after the heat dissipates. Once\u003cbr\u003eHe created a garden: partridges,\u003cbr\u003ealmonds and pomegranates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOasis of song, cloistered sapling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaid: \u003ci\u003eDo you not know me in my nakedness?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaid: I am the bloodstain\u003cbr\u003eleft in the dust after her shrouded body\u003cbr\u003eis hauled away in your truck, both hands broken\u003cbr\u003ebehind her back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaid: Only the speechless hear me.\u003cbr\u003eOnly the silent do not turn away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eDo you not know me by my song?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am the song of spilled blood, fragrant as lanolin,\u003cbr\u003eas vernix from the skin of newborns,\u003cbr\u003eripe as a lemon tree\u003cbr\u003espringing from the ribs of the earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am the slow circle\u003cbr\u003eof the bear’s dance. I am the wild lions of the desert\u003cbr\u003eand I am their carrion feast, too,\u003cbr\u003eMarjan’s blind and crusted eye. \u003ci\u003ePray\u003c\/i\u003e —\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor I am the pigeons that fill the twilit stadium\u003cbr\u003elifting and settling, quietly calling one another home,\u003cbr\u003edrawn to that dark patch, that mineral stain\u003cbr\u003eafter the crowd has gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Word About the Poem\u003c\/b\u003e By Rachel Rose\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI started composing the poems in “September Letters” as a way to calm myself as our plane attempted a landing in the chaos of the airport in Montreal on September 11, 2001. The idea was that if I had these poems to finish, we’d somehow make it home, which we did. But then the changes that September 11 wrought continued to haunt me, as they did so many who’d been brushed by the wings of terrorism (though I was, of course, perfectly safe). As I learned more about the situation, I learned also about the profound bravery of the women like Meena, murdered founder of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan, who fought the Taliban and smuggled out images of the cruelty inflicted upon other women, and I felt I must write to her, and apologize for only paying attention after my own chance encounter with being airborne at the wrong time. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow the Poem Works\u003c\/b\u003e By Susan Olding\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery correspondence, even an imaginary one, proposes a sender and a recipient. In “September Letters,” the series of seven poems that Rachel Rose began while her plane attempted to land following the collapse of the World Trade Center, recipients include those one might expect — the speaker’s mother and lover — as well as those one might not — a caged lion and an executioner. The recipient of the third poem, “Dear Meena,” is a revolutionary and martyr, a poet of tremendous courage and commitment who has become a symbol for liberty in a land where people, and women in particular, are denied the most basic of freedoms. Meanwhile, the sender writes from a “modern post-postmodern” place where “one in four Canadians\/ identifies as a poet,” but “nobody reads poetry.” Here, we are free to commit to whatever we choose, yet we seldom commit to anything; here, ironic detachment merges with hypocrisy, as we proclaim identity with what we do not even bother to support. How can a person from a culture like ours speak to someone like Meena? Insulated from terror until the poem’s occasion, yet in our ignorance far from innocent, how can we address those whose struggles have suddenly, belatedly been brought home to us? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe answer, of course, is honestly. In language that is direct, unfettered, and unadorned — fitting in a tribute to a woman who claims to have “\u003ci\u003esaid farewell to all golden bracelets\u003c\/i\u003e” — the speaker of “Dear Meena” admits the difficulty and acknowledges her insularity: “…you were shot.\/ What did I care\/ until I came that close to terror?” On that self-implicating question the poem turns. Only after accepting responsibility is the speaker able to do what until now she has claimed she cannot do — that is, to imagine her way inside the “rooms with blackened windows,” and then ever deeper, inside the burqa, inside the body and even the bones, all the way to her recipient’s soul. Only then can she see the “sisters” her recipient sees through the burqa’s “blue cotton weave,” and when she sees them, she begs forgiveness for not writing before. By the poem’s conclusion, Meena’s line, “\u003ci\u003eI’m the woman who has awoken\u003c\/i\u003e,” has become the speaker’s — and the reader’s — own. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeena’s compatriots in the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan concealed cameras beneath their burqas to uncover the cruelty of the Taliban. In using an instrument of repression to expose oppression they achieved the apparently impossible. “Dear Meena” performs its own impossibility. It adopts irony to transcend irony, turning an icon into an intimate. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSusan Olding is a Vancouver-based writer whose work has been published in literary magazines in both the U.S. and Canada.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301079994597,"sku":"NP9780771075919","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771075919.jpg?v=1767733917","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/notes-on-arrival-and-departure-isbn-9780771075919","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}