Ottawa poet Susan McMaster is the President of the League of Canadian Poets and author or editor of some two dozen books, magazines, and anthologies, including recordings with First Draft, SugarBeat, and Geode Music & Poetry.
COMING EVENT: 16 February 2012, Ottawa: Geode Music & Poetry, with Susan McMaster, Alrick Huebener, Jennifer Giles, David Broscoe, John Higney, Mike Essoudry, Dean Steadman, AB Series, Avant Garde Café, 7:30pm door opens, 8-9pm performance.
Things You'll Never Know: Selected poems and music from Crossing Arcs (recording with Jennifer Giles) is in production and some preview CDs will be available on 16 February. Susan is the founding editor of Canada's first feminist magazine, Branching Out, and has organized such projects as "Dangerous Graces: Women's Poetry on Stage" (Great Canadian Theater Company); and "Convergence: Poems for Peace", which brought poetry and art from across Canada to all MP's and Senators for the millennium. (See also Bio & List of Works, and Reviews & Quotes.)
Crossing Arcs: Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me (Black Moss 2009/10), a finalist for the 2010 Acorn-Plantos People's Poetry Award, the Ottawa Book Awards, and the Archibald Lampman Poetry Award, weaves Susan's poems with quotes from her mother, Betty Page, and photos by Marty Gervais.
Robert Sealey, Open Minds Quarterly: "Poem by poem, Susan gently show us her mother’s world... [and its] pithy, powerful and poignant insights..." Paper Affair: Poems Selected & New (Black Moss 2010) collects 25 years of the best of McMaster's poetry. Janice Kennedy, Ottawa Citizen: "Whether exploring love and loss, navigating the passages of time, or singing in the sensuous joy of the moment, Susan McMaster seduces with a juggler's grace, a sorcerer's dazzle and a stubborn passion's sweet and insistent throb." Pith and Wry: Canadian Poetry (Scrivener Press, 2010) collects vigorous new poetry by 45 living authors, renowned and emerging, from sea to sea to sea. Contributors include Atwood, Moure, McKay, Crozier, Reid, Kemp, Nash, Eichhorn, Dalton, Lee, Klassen, and more.
M.E. Csamer, Antigonish Review : "The voices, emerging and mature alike, are strong, full of compassion, insight, intelligence. Everywhere I find words that stop me in my tracks, small moments between writer and reader... [in] the clock-stopping mesmeric call of these voices."
Events 2012 (See also Recent events)
PHOTOS: Working on Gargoyle, France, 2007 (ph: M. Gervais); Ottawa, 1990; with "Geode Music & Poetry", 2000; with Betty Page, 2009 (ph: M. Gervais); with manager Stephane Sauve at Glebe Meat Market, 2008 (ph: A. Huebener); at Leacock Poetry Festival, Orillia, 2010 (ph: Mark Tearle); outside the National Gallery, 2009 (ph: Ian McMaster). Request hi-res or additional photos at contact Susan McMaster. Also check Facebook.
Thanks for support to the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, City of Ottawa (RMOC), League of Canadian Poets, and Writers' Union of Canada.
NEW BOOKS
Lara Henderson, The Campus: Bishop's University: "Lighthearted wisdom... put[s] a voice to a difficult experience by fracturing it into small observations, which convey emotion without overwhelming the reader... both straightforward and honest..."
Reader comments: "How can heartbreak be so lovely? I think it’s the tenderness of each word..."
"The right complex of sorrow, anger, and even joy... a balance of gentle pathos and wry humour."
"Couldn't put it down... relevant to anyone who has a family member or friend suffering from dementia."
"Simple and yet evocative... the scenes build one upon the other... like an intimate play..."
"Thoughtful, honest, funny, eye-opening..."
"Totally inspiring... a reprieve..."
Carolyn Smart, writer, editor McGill-Queen's: "Susan McMaster's purview is the world entire, with all its mystery, heartbreak and magic. This extensive and revealing volume displays her range and her heart, in equal measure."
Dave Margoshes, writer, director of Sage Hill writing program: "These are deceptively simple poems, but there’s nothing deceptive about their craftsmanship or their honesty. The best ones ease up to you, then sting."
Jeanette Lynes, writer: "Penned with a sure hand, there's receptivity in these poems to the world and the word. Both heart and mind soar in McMaster's paper affair."
Jan Conn, writer: "These deeply felt poems embrace domestic scenes and the dense, complex weave of human relationships, then whirl us away to the quantum world, where they 'admit the draw of starlight'. There is rhythm and verve in every dimension Susan McMaster explores."
Heather Spears, GG award winner: "Winsome, muscular, candid, intimate yet universal. Susan McMaster has an open, seemingly effortless control of her craft and the genius to bring each poem to a startling, inevitable (and beautiful) conclusion."
Rob McLeod, Canadian Bookseller: "[The poems] leap out at the reader and grab hold of the gut... An anthology full of variety, bite, and hard-hitting imagery."
16 February 2012, Ottawa: Geode Music & Poetry, with Susan McMaster, Alrick Huebener, Jennifer Giles, David Broscoe, John Higney, Mike Essoudry, Dean Steadman, AB Series, Avant Garde Café, 7:30pm door opens, 8-9pm performance.
Recent events
Read a
poem
Hear a
poem
Geode Music & Poetry
Bio & List of Works
Reviews & Quotes
Bookstores & On-line Purchases
On-line Links
Sumac Editing & Writing
Contact the Author
This website is hosted by the