mummer: a person acting in a masked mime prisoner: a person trapped by a
set of circumstances scavenger: a person who collects abandoned items
thief: a person who takes things by stealth, without force or violence
This collection begins in the realm of the mummer whose masked
performance conceals the self and transforms language to better evoke
what is too risky to speak overtly. Ransick's poems ply this tension
between knowing and speaking in cadence and imagery that simultaneously
disorients readers and beckons them forward, in lines whose
half-remembered music refuses to be predictable. The role of the shunned
figures in the title is to draw poems out from the margins of
experience, to reclaim voices muted by more powerful forces, an elusive
goal only the best poetry can accomplish. Travel along with them as
guides, ready to steal and scavenge what you need for your own escape.