“There’s so much love in these poems. Genuine and constant.”
–Erica Wright, author of All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned
Through her elegiac poetry collection, In the Grip of Grace, Marianne Mersereau pays homage to her Appalachian roots and to beloved places and people who now seem forever out of reach except through their vivid stories. The poet patchworks ancestor tales into her own visceral memoir quilt, sometimes relating memory snapshots from personal experience, sometimes bearing witnessing to family history. The effect is a warm cacophony of voices that call as the poet responds and reflects.
While the title refers to recurring themes of faith and family, it also magnifies how close bonds clutch our being in ways we don’t always consciously admit. Mersereau’s poems serve as cords tying her to a time and place where aunts might accidentally sew a snake into an uncle’s pillow, where curious children might find relief from bee stings in their father’s healing tobacco chaw, where a man might find high church in his solitude, and where a couple of religious young girls bash apart evil heavy metal records only to find themselves dancing to the same songs later in life. Ghosts, haints (both animal and human), strange lightning and mountain rituals also enchant the reader.
Some of my favorite poems in the collection are about the poet’s mother, who just happens to be named “Grace.” Mersereau pays tribute to her mother’s hair in a breathtaking poem about grief: “Her hair hangs like a long dark mystery/waist-length, the color of coal.” And in a tender memory about her father bringing in flowers from the farm field: “He kisses her and sets the jar/ on the table—a testimony/at the closing of the day.” In the Grip of Grace, we come to grasp how “the cord still feeds the rose/and pulls us home in frequent dreams.”
–Roberta Schultz, author of Underscore and Asking Price.
The touchstone for the poems in Marianne Mersereau’s superb book In the Grip of Grace can be found in her epigraph from Rilke―the “long gone are in us.” Her words conjure memories of family and the Appalachian ”holler, gap, ridge, and hill” of her childhood, its ground fertile with restless spirits and “seeming impossibilities.” Under the spell of Mersereau’s vivid and compassionate voice, readers will be held in thrall to these poems of her rich-storied life.
–Anna Egan Smucker, author of Rowing Home, No Star Nights, and other books.
Marianne Mersereau’s In the Grip of Grace is compelling poetry, adroit storytelling, and keen memoir. Using direct, immediate language to evoke memory, Mersereau extols the past and the necessity to remember it, as the book’s epigraphs by Rilke and Trethewey establish. The pages teem with ghosts and graveyards, ponies, family members living and dead, bats, Jesus, gardens and fields, miners and teachers, churches, and more, all against a backdrop of Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachia. When the poet turns to the cruel murder of an elephant named Mary and reveals the younger elephants’ memory of their relative 23 years later, she is also honoring the power of human love. She writes, “[the townspeople] buried [Mary] . . ./ thinking she’d be forgotten, forgetting how loud bones speak.” Indeed, the precise set of experiences these poems recall is a testament to remembering; they remind us to listen for the bones of our loved ones speaking to us from this world and the other side.
–Annette Sisson, author of Small Fish in High Branches (Glass Lyre Press, 2022).
From an Appalachian holler to the ghost of a mountaintop long lost to coal mining, the narrative poems in Marianne Mersereau‘s poetry collection, In the Grip of Grace, form a rich mosaic of a life. Through family lore, miraculous cures, and the equally miraculous healing power of nature, Mersereau’s poems reflect the very essence of mystery as the speaker loses her religion yet finds her faith and becomes “a goddess / in the grip of grace.”
–Jill McCabe Johnson, author of Tangled in Vow & Beseech and Revolutions We’d Hoped We’d Outgrown
Kevin Maines –
The Author of “In the Grip of Grace” Really Leaves You Wanting More
“In the Grip of Grace,” the poet, Marianne Mersereau takes leave for a bit of the Pacific Northwest, where she makes her present home in Washington and pulls from cherished memories of the Appalachia forested hills triangled by the boarders Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina where she grew up.
This collection of poems reads like an ancestral narrative of her family and friends. From Bats in the Chimney to the Chicken Coop Chapel she uses her fine-honed skills as an extraordinary wordsmith to retell the details of family stories she has grown up with. She makes no apology for ghosts and healing of a severed tongue among squawking Chickens by faith and the grace of God.
One of my favorites is Elephants Remembered, which unleashes a variety of emotions from fascination to anger and finally sadness. From Sonnets to Ceder Hill, which was crafted into a calligram in the shape of a cedar tree, Marianne brings an array of artistic thought that she cultivates and infuses into the making of this book.
If poetry can serve as a memoir, this book could be seen as very close to it. The poem titled In Which My Parents Are Resurrected is a touching remembrance. It, along with Scattering Locks, and Umbilical Cord make up a very strong Trifecta of poems closing out this book. I recommend this especially for a strong and memorable conclusion.
Michael A. Wells
Kevin Maines –
Snapshots in time of life and love growing up in Appalachia with faith and family.
From the miracles of the mystical, to the memories of those who mourn, Marianne paints life looked through the lens of “all life is sacred.” The divine is honored in the tangible of farm chores and the ties of umbilical cords, is heard through the earth and her precious flora and fauna, is seen in the interplay of the living and the dead. Heaven is here now. Both sides of the veil are open for those with ears to hear and eyes to see. Marianne has invited us to hear and to see these truths in our own grace-filled lives.
The poems, Appalachian Goddess, Bee Whispering, War Ghosts in the Attic, and Skirted Soldiers elevate the reader to remember that we are all more than flesh and blood. Our energy lives in us and through us, connecting us to each other in the grip of grace.
Monica McDowell
Kevin Maines –
A beautiful collection of poetry that I will certainly return to often. To keep on my bedside table. These poems transported me to another place but also another time and though the poems are a tribute to the poet’s ancestors and are close to Marianne’s past, they reflect universal themes, from tradition, to resilience, love and loss. Locks of hair, an umbilical cord, hard rock, Pearl Harbor, how to appease a queen bee… I had favourites like “Sleeping with a Serpent.” How wonderful to read about snake and man in a vivre ensemble moment. Stanley Kunitz evoked this moment as well in his “The Snakes of September.” “Elegy for my Uncle’s Kidney,” can be set in different contexts and I was taken from a war scene to a domestic one—carry on even though we live with the loss and grief. Loved “I’m Told How to Get a Pretty Man” that for me values women’s work within the home, the attention to detail, the art of keeping home and taking pride as home is where the heart is. Reading “In the Grip of Grace,” has been a truly moving and rewarding experience. Marianne’s poetic voice, talent, skill shines throughout.
Isabelle B.L.
Kevin Maines –
“I’ve enjoyed this book of poems. It is a fine collection. I’ve read it twice so far. My special favorites are: Why I Eat Pears on My Birthday, Keeping the Peace, Cedar Hill, On Becoming a Writer, Marry Up, Ode to My First Grade Teacher, Learning to Whistle and Scattering the Locks. Your ability to recall details and moods from your past is a gift. As is crafting these into stories that connect with the reader and create clear pictures.”
Wallace Mersereau
Kevin Maines –
“I love the way it is written, with humor, sadness and history. I’m in awe of these poems! I cried and sat in wonder while reading them. I have copied my favorite, “How to Get a Pretty Man” to send to my friends; I have read that one six times and still weep!”
Bryn Homsy
Kevin Maines –
“Heartfelt and transporting and made me cry – something I will be able to return to again and again.”
Elizabeth Hanson
Kevin Maines –
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise interview with Tori Villiard:
https://www.uvawise.edu/news/2024/10/grip-grace-award-winning-poet-reflects-impact-her-time-uva-wise