{"id":10166,"date":"2013-10-08T02:14:21","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T21:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/someone-elses-north-by-laisha-rosnau\/"},"modified":"2023-02-14T15:20:19","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T10:20:19","slug":"someone-elses-north-by-laisha-rosnau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/someone-elses-north-by-laisha-rosnau\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone Else\u2019s North by Laisha Rosnau"},"content":{"rendered":"

Someone Else\u2019s North<\/strong><\/p>\n

We mark papers and hire sitters and drink to once upon
\nwhen we ranged north, spent summers in tents, biked
\nfrom Yukon to Alaska alone. Now, we apply for more grants,
\nallow ourselves to be stream-fed scraps of gossip.<\/p>\n

Even in daydreams, we have the same d\u00e9cor: the animal skull
\nhung off-centre on a white wall, an iconic chair, vintage globe,
\nthe taxidermied bird, for godsake\u2014all ironic, or not.
\nWho is this we<\/em>? you ask. Why am I roping you into this?<\/p>\n

This is no mountain I\u2019ve climbed alone, this dailiness,
\nthese details. We are all complicit. A friend closes a door
\nbehind a grad student and you don\u2019t say anything, then or later.
\nBefore we documented everything, I had nothing but memory<\/p>\n

to mark my solo ascents. Halfway up Montana Mountain,
\nI heard the rasp of breath first then hooves severed
\nthe icy skein of snow before I looked up from my climb
\nto catch the sidelong glance of a caribou as it ran by.<\/p>\n

I can see its large, glossy eyeball roll toward me,
\nhear the whir of insects alighting on my exposed skin
\nuntil I climbed high enough that I was through them.
\nThat is someone else\u2019s north now; my polestar shifting<\/p>\n

as my compass trembles like a pulse. Friends appear
\nonscreen, well-linked and adorned with witticisms.
\nOur time-lines flicker, back-lit. We\u2019re all amateurs\u2014
\nour history, our cartography as looped and twisted as string.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

from This Glossy Animal<\/em>, a limited edition chapbook to be released by Baseline Press in November 2013.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Laisha Rosnau<\/strong> worked for four summers in Whitehorse, Yukon. Leaving in late August marked her more \u201cwuss\u201d than \u201cNortherner\u201d however she lived for five years\u2014winters included!\u2014in Prince George, BC. Rosnau is the author of three collections of poetry, including Decadent Nut Orchard<\/em>, to be published by Nightwood in Spring 2014, and a novel, The Sudden Weight of Snow<\/em> (McClelland & Stewart). Rosnau lives in Coldstream, BC, where her family are resident caretakers of Bishop Wild Bird Sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Check out more of Laisha\u2019s work and other great poetry in Arc\u2019s<\/em> North issue, coming in November to a newsstand near you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone Else\u2019s North We mark papers and hire sitters and drink to once upon when we ranged north, spent summers in tents, biked from Yukon to Alaska alone. Now, we apply for more grants, allow ourselves to be stream-fed scraps of gossip. Even in daydreams, we have the same d\u00e9cor: the animal skull hung off-centre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"10609","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1712],"tags":[],"genre":[150],"publisher":[],"issue":[84],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3148],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10166"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}