MURMURS AT THE GATE
murmurs at the gate – 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.
Ms. 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.
Poetry
ISBN:978-1-947021-92-1
Publication Date: May 27, 2019
murmurs at the gate – 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.
Ms. 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.
Poetry
ISBN:978-1-947021-92-1
Publication Date: May 27, 2019
murmurs at the gate – 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.
Ms. 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.
Poetry
ISBN:978-1-947021-92-1
Publication Date: May 27, 2019
Praise for MURMURS AT THE GATE
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.
Suzanne Rancourt has written an autobiography in words -- words that bring the reader into her life and all its difficult and joyous events, words that show us how a truly brave woman-artist lives. Her images sing and whirl, as when she writes, " The wind in a spinning skirt sneaks a harmony from thighs to earth. . . " This is Rancourt's second book, and it points the way to more poems that clamor to be read and heard.
Bertha Rogers, Poet, Wild, Again
Your 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.
Professor Margo Fuchs Knill, Ph.D.,
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..."
Duncan Harley
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
I would lie if I didn’t admit that my first impulse when writing a response to “murmurs at the gate” was to say “if Emily Dickinson went to war….” But Rancourt’s work is more deserving than a comparison to Dickinson, to the extent that the comparison discounts her work, because her work makes me question why it is that Dickinson comes to mind. Why am I more familiar with Dickinson than any story before her time, before white privilege erased the voices they didn’t want to hear. Why would I compare Rancourt’s work to the work of another female poet (especially one as canonized as Dickinson)? Why not Brian Turner, Yousef Komannyakka, Owen, Sassoon, insert name of another male poet who has written about war. Rancourt writes, “Violence is a heavy thing,” compares the sand of war to makeup that comes in “metal saucer discs with a compact mirror,” as she bears witness from life how female veterans must not only fight war, but oppression, victimization. No, there is no comparison. Rancourt blazes new trails with her use of dashes—cutting time and adding time, and fierce use of line breaks that move a poem forward, reflective and visual, sensual and philosophical. Image by image, thought by thought, image by thought, by question, by why? Why, in coming up with analogy, comparison, simile, to describe her work, does my mouth come up dry, and I’m left searching for “belt loops, dry socks, and cigarettes….” Yet my mouth is filled with “true flavor.”
Jason Poudrier, 2018 Pat Tillman Scholar and author of Red Fields
About SUZANNE S. RANCOURT
Suzanne S. Rancourt is a poet and veteran of both the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army as well being an Abenaki and Huron descendant. She was born and raised in west central Maine
