murmurs at the gate

by Suzanne S Rancourt

Overview

Suzanne S. Rancourt’s second book of poetry uses both fictional and auto-biographical events to create a chorus of survivors. These poems for the unspeakable, the marginalized, the “in-betweeners,” create a chorus of survivors in the theatre of life’s sorrow, love, tragedy, beauty, and profound human resiliency.

Rancourt’s life attests to being a survivor, and states, “Prejudice is non-discriminatory.” murmurs at the gate, is a poetic narrative that explores the harsh measures of life’s wars. “If we are at war with everything, who are the Warriors? Who are the survivors? And, for how long does the war cry reverberate?” Marine and Army veteran, and multi-modal artist, Ms. Rancourt brings to the reader her rich and diverse metaphors inspired by rural mountain living and Native American culture. Ms. Rancourt honors all her ancestors in this astounding book where every murmur could be your own.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947021921
Publisher:	Unsolicited Press
Publication date:	05/01/2019
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.46(d)

About the Author

Ms. Rancourt is Abenaki/Huron decent, born and raised in the mountains of West Central Maine currently residing in the Adirondack Mountains, NY. A multi-modal artist, she has work appearing in Bright Hill Press 25th Anniversary Anthology, Dawnland Voices 2.0 #4, Northern New England Review, Bear Review, Three Drops Press, Snapdragon Journal, mgversion2datura, Sirsee, Slipstream, Muddy River Poetry Review, Ginosko, Journal of Military Experience, Cimarron Review, Callaloo, numerous anthologies, translations, and text books. Her book, Billboard in the Clouds was the winner of the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award.
Ms. Rancourt holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from Vermont College; Master of Science degree in Educational Psychology from SUNY, Albany, NY; a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Expressive Arts: therapy, education, and consulting from the European Graduate School, Switzerland. Ms. Rancourt is a Certified Facilitator and Affiliate of the Amherst Writers and Artists. She is a NY Credentialed Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor. Ms. Rancourt holds rank in both Aikido and Iaido reflecting her 18 years of practice and training. She is a veteran of both the USMC and US Army. She continues to serve through the Saratoga County (NY) Veterans Peer to Peer Mentoring program.

Editorial Reviews

Whether exploring the strengths that bind us within familial relationships or of those that bind us to the elemental forces within the natural world, Rancourt’s poems serve as spiritual meditations, igniting chords of remembrance for who and what we truly are beyond the limitations of flesh and bone. Often deft with subtlety, such as the character reveal of a father who “removed that petrified baby rabbit from the middle of the logging road,” this collection also holds back nothing in its seeking to understand humanity’s obsession with violence, given our indelible commonalities of what it means to be human. Prepare to be moved!

-- Tracy Crow

Suzanne Rancourt takes us deeply into the loves and the lives of her Native American people; enough so that we find ourselves touching our own stories, our ancestors, our own fragile and tough remembrances. It’s a beautiful book; one will want to read and re-read her tender and tough stories, deeply compassionate, touched here and there with delicious humor.

Pat Schneider, author, Writing Alone and With Others and How the Light Gets In, both from Oxford University Press, and founder, Amherst Writers & Artists.

Professor Margo Fuchs Knill, Ph.D., said, "[Rancourt's] poetry brings width to time, lets me enter places unheard of, yet familiar in their humanness - I love to listen to the poetic stories, finally, they are heard forever."

Bereft of the usual capitalisation in the title line, Suzanne Rancourt’s new anthology ‘murmurs at the gate’ makes for a quite reasonable read. I have taken the decision to capitalise the entry-line. Not that you would really notice. It’s just that MS Word requires such pleasantries.

Ms Rancourt is of course a military veteran and her past experiences show through and not at all in a shadowy way.

There are no smoke bombs here and the 200 or so pages encompass and expose the inner workings of a thoughtful poet who has bravely shed the notion that just a few poems would do for a first shot at stardom. Not that any are superfluous. Just that there are a lot of them. In a more equal world, where editions flow rarely, reviewers and commenters would have the privilege of following a poetic career. There are some ‘Oh my god the tank is on fire’ moments. But equally there many short and concisely penned pieces such as November:



The tomato

like a cup of tea

your hands cupped its essence

an offering your hands made

like feeding doves

I was hungry

In extreme contrast the likes of Cold Steel, Fathers Gone and the bloodily suggestive Ba Boom: ‘what is action, I was just saying the other day how some assaults cause one person to disintegrate into wicked submission’ reveal the inner workings and the darker depths within this sometimes-dark anthology.

The Global War on Terror, a toothless Gramma and a splendidly titled poem headed ‘In Between’ inhabit this quite splendid collection of what must be a lifetime’s thoughts.

On a personal level, the lines ‘What kind of animal are we that does not recognize we are all related’ resonate. As does that anthem to the lost which includes the lines:

‘a coffee table edition of History Americana

as real today as it was then.

And most who read this

will not know what I’m talking about. ‘

If only this collection was available in every school and in every church throughout the land.

-- Duncan Harley

From the Publisher