Laisha
Rosnau
Laisha Rosnau is the author of three collections of poetry: Notes on Leaving, winner of the 2005 Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Award, Lousy Explorers, which was a finalist for the Pat Lowther Award, and Pluck, which was nominated for the national Raymond Souster Award. She is also the author of The Sudden Weight of Snow, which was an honourable mention for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Rosnau teaches fiction and poetry at UBC, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Film School, and Okanagan College. She and her family are the resident caretakers of Bishop Wild Bird Sanctuary in Coldstream, British Columbia.
Award History
2023 Winner
Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry PrizeJury Citation
With incisive descriptions, steady rhythms, and imaginative leaps, Laisha Rosnau’s work shows us the flaws and fragility of being human. Her expansive body of work addresses personal and global issues in language sometimes woven delicately, and other times with necessary force. Ultimately, we are left with the desire to read more from this striking and intelligent poetic voice. The poet takes on themes of immigration, patriarchy, colonial greed, and war; the poet’s body of work to date is unrelenting in its portrayals, but not without depth and complexity. Lines like: “We live in a world saturated by symbolism. Sometimes it is best to be direct” remind us of the power of poetry to be clear-eyed and insistent on the injustices and atrocities of our past, which are still with us in the present moment.
