Duncan Harley

Bereft of the usual capitalisation in the title line, Suzanne S. Rancourt’s new poetry anthology ‘ murmurs at the gate’ makes for a quite reasonable read. I have taken the decision to capitalise the header. 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 more rarely, reviewers and commentators would have the privilege of following a poetic career. There are some ‘Oh my god the tank is on fire’ moments here. But equally there many short and concisely penned pieces such as November: The tomato like a cup of tea...

It's maybe just a few weeks till the annual anniversary of the demise of Bob Smith. I am always ahead of the game and just thought that you might be happy to remember the splendid man.  Bob famously spent a latter career slaving over adverts for an uncaring local paper and was a fierce critic of Donald Trump. He would never miss an opportunity to mention Trump in his popular poems, which featured weekly in Aberdeen Voice. He features in my two books along with the likes of Wallace, Bruce, Byron and T.E. Lawrence. And why not.  All in all, Bob contributed in excess of 200 poems to the Aberdeen Voice and had a few of his pieces published in the glossy Leopard. There maybe should have been a book but he never made it into that sort of print. Occasionally I think of the man. For some strange reason, his memory popped up today despite the few more weeks till the anniversary of his passing. Here, for what it's worth, is his take on the Doric: A’ve ayewis spak the Dori...