Tricia McCallum’s poems encounter what “will not be known” over and over again, in a voice both quiet and unflinching. With humility and “incongruous grace,” McCallum masters the art of seeing -- and reminds us as readers to look closely at what is lost or forgotten. A fugue of fleeting faces and moments, “The Music of Leaving” deserves—indeed, demands—to be savored.
—Jena Strong, Author of Don’t Miss This

If you want to know something worth exploring through the various faces of humanity, pick up Tricia McCallum’s The Music of Leaving and take a ride on the subway, sit in the cafe over a cup of steaming tea, go to the pub and lean in: see if these poems don’t guide you and resonate with the people you cross hellos with along the way. McCallum locates the glue in the mundane, shares the lessons borne from strife and limns the borders of the roles we inhabit. These are not instructions gathered, but rather, questions posed so that we may pause, explore deeply, and take the overlooked in, “Why did I not grab every moment / And make it sing.” She reminds us to not only inhabit our relationships, but to actually relate.
—Amy King, Author of I’m the Man Who Loves You and I Want to Make You Safe

The Music of Leaving dramatizes multiple departures: emotional, political, geo- graphical, temporal. Tricia McCallum’s accessible and direct “slice of life” poems are artfully shaped by the candour and compassion of a wise woman who has learned much from a life of curious journeying.
—Laurie Kruk, author of My Mother Did Not Tell Stories

Review of "The Music of Leaving" in January issue of “Contemporary Verse” from the Canadian Journal of Poetry and Critical Thinking

Writer returns to her Barrie roots - The Barrie Examiner.com