The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors

<p>Published through Montréal's Cactus Press <em>The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors</em> is Jerome Ramcharitar's debut collection of poetry. Jerome Ramcharitar is a writer based in Montréal Québec. Most of his days are spent teaching business English and occasionally causing more trouble as a poet. He has co-hosted a number of literary events most notably Accent Open Mic and The Lawn Chair Soirée. His first chapbook <em>The Wrong Poem and Others Like It</em> was published with Cactus Press and won Expozine's Best Book Award in 2022. <em>The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors</em> is his first full-length collection. </p><p></p><p>As he guides you slowly carefully through this gothic castle of a debut full of shadowplay and mirrorshimmer crawling with all manner of beasts birds angels and demons and echoing with so many eerie familiar whispering voices Jerome Ramcharitar opens a door to a realm of aesthetics seldom visited in twenty-first century poetry. <em>The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors</em> takes you to a place where the urban and the fantastical the elemental and the savant all mesh in a language plain and direct and yet highly symbolically charged. It's Gwendolyn MacEwen meeting you at the grocery store. It's you running into an eighth-century bard at a rave. It's a hugely impressive book written by a highly esteemed member of the Montreal writing community. To be read out loud and chiefly at night.</p><p>-James Dunnigan author of <em>I Spurinna</em> and <em>Windchime Concerto</em></p><p></p><p>The poems in Jerome Ramcharitar's <em>The Riddle of Three Crimson Doors</em> hinge on how we listen interpret and pass through language. By turns wry sly and elegant Ramcharitar treats the riddle not as a puzzle to be solved but as a mode of thinking-one that activates mystery and multiplicity while sidestepping traps of mundane logic. With precision lyrical control and layered sonic texture these poems transform philosophical inquiry into mulch making cognition material: a living thing that prowls the page as animal appetite movement blood and breath.</p><p>-Domenica Martinello author of <em>Good Want</em></p>