Lousy explorers

Nominated for the Pat Lowther Award

This is Laisha Rosnau's second collection of poetry, after the award-winning Notes on Leaving.  In Lousy Explorers, husbands and wives stumble into each other at the end of days, children find the wild edges of suburbs, new mothers try to navigate through a map-less terrain, and a relentless epidemic of bugs eats away at the forest.

The collection explores new territory, both physically and emotionally—relocation, the north, new marriage and motherhood—in a way that is honest, raw and insightful.

In a northern landscape, punctuated by the sounds of chainsaws, float planes, and wild animals crashing about on the edges of subdivisions, Rosnau reminds us that: 

That hot dark centres of stars are hidden from us.
All we see is light punctured into the sky.

Reviews + Praise 

As imagery goes, it is difficult to recall someone I have recently encountered as talented as Rosnau. The straightforward, pure beauty of these poems will resonate with you long after your first (and second, and third) reading. – The Goose

In Lousy Explorers…one could never consider Rosnau anything but a deft explorer of the heart; she writes with passion, honesty and precision…Lousy Explorers offers a sharp and knowing take on the world; it acknowledges the cost of being human, of change, with an unflinching yet compassionate eye…The subtlety with which Rosnau evokes the range of human emotion is striking. Ambition, vulnerability, thoughtlessness, desire – so much is laid bare by the smallest of details. – Globe & Mail

Rosnau's poems are never content with mere fantasies of suburban prettiness. She brings a psychological depth and gravitas reminiscent of William Stafford's or James Dickey's disturbed rural precincts into the residential corridors of southern British Columbia, and that makes me very happy. – Paul Vermeersch 

Exposed, expanding, these are poems on the verge of eruption. – Winnipeg Free Press