Website:
http://web.ncf.ca/smcmaster/
Email:
c/o Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia
Four years ago, poet Susan McMaster found a beautiful small summer home on the Fundy shore, where she and her husband Ian now spend most of most of the sunny months, returning to Ottawa for snowy winters. She is the author of some dozen books and recordings; an editor of anthologies, books, and magazines; and the creator and performer of music-and-poetry works with First Draft and Geode Music & Poetry (a.k.a. SugarBeat). Her most recent book, completed last summer in Nova Scotia, is a mid-life memoir of her writing life, entitled The Gargoyle's Left Ear. Her book and CD Until the Light Bends were shortlisted for the 2005 Ottawa Book Award and the Lampman Poetry Prize. She has read and performed across Canada, and her music-and-poetry has been featured on national shows like WordBeat, Go!, Richardson's Roundup, As It Happens, and Morningside, and at international poetry festivals in Ottawa, Napoli, and Salerno. Other projects include founding the national feminist and arts magazine Branching Out; writing poetry scripts for the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the National Arts Centre Atelier, and "Poetry in the Park"; and initiating "Convergence: Poems for Peace", a millennial project to bring poetry and art from across Canada (including Nova Scotian Carole Glasser Langille) to all Parliamentarians in 2001. Her poetry has inspired works by many artists, composers, and musicians.
Susan is grateful for a warm welcome into the Nova Scotia literary world through a performance at Marc Petersen's Acoustic Maritime Music Festival in July 2007 with bassist Alrick Huebener, readings with Heather Pyrcz at Acadia University in Wolfville, with David Rimmington at the Seahorse Tavern in Halifax, at the Minasville Community Centre biweekly jams, and at Kennetcook School at the invitation of Scott Rines. As well, Susan held a celebratory reading-with-champagne on the doorstep for the crew and friends who had just lifted up her house, moved it 80 feet, and turned it around to face the sea last summer (she read her poem, written 25 years ago, that begins "Today, I turned everything around"). Her current manuscript, started in Nova Scotia, is entitled "Summer House".
- The Gargoyle's Left Ear: Writing in Ottawa. Black Moss, 2007. ISBN 978-0-88753-443-0.
- Until the Light Bends. Black Moss, 2004. ISBN 0-88753-397-3.
- "Multi-talented writer is at her best in her fifth collection [...] deepens her quest for affirmation [...] some of her best poetic music leaps from the prose poem" - Canadian Bookseller
- "The breath is [...] a force to be reckoned with [...] 'Hanging Transparent,' in which a jittery and fractured subject moves in and out of panic, McMaster shows the reader the violence of a shocked pause turned tender, trapped in dreamscapes that are less surreal than painfully parallel to the perceivable world [...] the resonant and melodious "Sonata for Watcher and Shades" [...] gracefully performs up to the challenge of rendering music in poetry. "This Question of the Mouth" (written for the late Kingston poet Bronwen Wallace) and the devastating "Courage/Coeur de rage/" lay the groundwork for the elegiac long poem that anchors the collection. "Ordinary," a lyric inquiry into a friend's illness and eventual death, is kept rapturously afloat by McMaster's deliberately intense manipulation of line breaks and her unwavering eye for compassionate detail.... Until the Light Bends has an unusual quality of ceremony combined with a sense of swift strokes; McMaster's ... intelligence and willingness to take risks create a sense of size and occasion around each poem, the courage to have /le coeur de rage/." - Tanis MacDonald, Arc Magazine.
- Waging Peace: Poetry and Political Action. ed., Penumbra, 2002. ISBN 978-1894131377.
- La Deriva del Pianeta / World Shift. Schifanoia, Italy, 2003, transl./ed. Ada Donati. ISBN 88-87882-30-4.
- Siolence: Poets on Violence and Silence. ed., Living Archives Series, Quarry, 1998. ISBN 1-55082-158-X.
- "Well informed, insightful and thought provoking [...] Highly recommended" - Manitoba Library Association
- "Diverse and resonant essays in a provocative collection" - Mennonite Quarterly Review
- Uncommon Prayer: A Book of Dedications. Quarry, 1997. ISBN 1550821962.
- "Takes risks and enters into new poetic territories [...] speaks with earthy sensuality" - Room of One's Own.
- "Attains a level of craft and empathy that all poets strive for" - Canadian Bookseller
- Learning to Ride. Quarry, 1994, illus. Robert Verrall. ISBN 1-55082-104-0.
- "Pulsing, muscular [...] the energy and discipline that McMaster praises in the act of riding she also displays in her lines [...] exultant sensuality" - Books in Canada
- The Hummingbird Murders. Quarry, 1992. ISBN 1-55082-048-6.
- "A metaphor for the difficult examination of the facts of marriage: the intimacies achieved within the mess of reality, the regenerative power of a pair of whirring wings [...] dark, powerful and moving" - Ottawa Citizen
- Dangerous Graces: Women's Poetry on Stage. Balmuir, 1987. ISBN 0-919511-41-4.
- "Enriches the repertoire of contemporary Canadian drama [...] playful, provocative, contemplative [...] an innovative example of alternative theatre" - Canadian Literature
- Dark Galaxies. Ouroboros, 1986. ISBN 0-920301-07-X.
- "Strips away the wrapping from human relationships [...] displays intelligence and integrity [...] gets at essences while maintaining an optimistic energy" - Toronto Star
- North/South. Underwhich, 1986: w. composer Andrew McClure, poet Colin Morton. ISBN 0-88658-054-4.
- Pass This Way Again. Underwhich, 1983: w. Andrew McClure, artist Claude Dupuis. ISBN 0-88658-015-3.
- "Glows with intelligence and the collaborative spirit; heartily recommended" - Canadian Poetry Chronicle
- "Rich and intriguing work [...] unexpected monumentality [...] clings to the mind hauntingly" - Citizen
- Branching Out Magazine. Founding ed., 1973-75, contributor 1975-80.
- Wordmusic: 1981 First Draft 2007. 2007.
- Until the Light Bends. Pendas Productions/Geode, 2004, w. Jennifer Giles, Alrick Huebener, David Broscoe, Jamie Gullikson, John Higney, Mark Molnar.
- Two Lips, by Penn Kemp. Pendas Productions, collaboration on selected pieces, 2003.
- "Penn's collaboration with Susan, packs a wallop [...] their apt metaphors and onomatopoetic phrases recreate the holocaust [...] as Alrick's bow scrapes the bass [...] Word, sound, and music coalesce into a piece of major impact [...] With Susan's crone-wise, velvet-steel voice, Penn softly invites the listener in. Then, Anne's sharp-lyric, angular-heraldic tone brings the theme home." - Prairie Fire.
- Convergence: Poems for Peace. LCP, spoken word anthology, 2002.
- Geode Music & Poetry. Geode, 2000, w. Giles, Huebener, Michael Essoudry, Petr Cancura.
- SugarBeat Music & Poetry. SugarBeat, 1998, with Giles, Huebener.
- "Stormy, quirky, otherworldly, contemplative, tender, sensual, foot-tapping" - Ottawa Citizen
- "A riveting expression of spacey sensuality!" - MP3 review of featured poetry song, Poetry Hit Parade #7
- "A fast-paced, melodious nugget [...] dramatic urban sensibility" - Capital City
- "Stride and breadth [...] a meditative repose, a red-hot sprint" - Noah Leznoff, LCP review
- Carnivocal. Red Deer Press, sound poetry anthology, 1999.
- Dangerous Times. SugarBeat, 1996, with Giles, Huebener, Gavin McLintock.
- Wordmusic. First Draft, 1986, w. McClure, Morton.
- Convergence: Poets for Peace. 35 sets, 2500 poems with art, LCP, 2001.
- Bookware: Ottawa Valley Poets. co-editor with C. Morton, LCP, 1994.
- Women and Violence. Living Archives, LCP, 1993, Quarry 1997. ISBN 0-9690327-8-1.
- Two Women Talking: Erin Mouré & Bronwen Wallace. Living Archives, LCP, 1993. ISBN 0-9690327-7-3.
- Illegitimate Positions: Women & Language. Living Archives, LCP, 1992.
- Re:Generations, Canadian Women Poets in Conversation. eds. Di Brandt, B. Godard, Black Moss, 2005. ISBN 0-88753-393-0.
- 100 Poets against the War. ed. Todd Swift, Salt Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-1876857981.
- Line by Line. ed. Heather Spears, 2000. ISBN ISBN 1-896860-50-8.
- Imprints and Casualties: Poets on Women and Language, Reinventing Memory. ed. Anne Burke, Broken Jaw Press, 2000. ISBN 9781896647241.
- Feminism and the Language of Love. ed. Maria Jacobs, Living Archives, LCP, 2000.
- Crossing Boundaries: Women's Poetry on Sport. HKCanada, 1999. ISBN 0736000887.
- A Room at the Heart of Things. ed. Elizabeth Harvor, Véhicule, 1998.
- Nothing but Blue Skies. Blue Skies Music Festival, 1998.
- Poets in the Classroom. ed. Betsy Struthers, Pembroke, 1995. ISBN ISBN 1-55138-055-2.
- Vintage '93. Quarry/LCP, 1994. ISBN 9781550821222.
- Women and Violence. ed. Sarah Klassen, Living Archives, LCP, 1993.
- The Windhorse Reader. Windhorse, 1992.
- Celebrating Canadian Women. ed. Greta Hofmann Nemiroff, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1989. ISBN 9780889026469.
- Capital Poets: An Ottawa Anthology. ed. Colin Morton, Ouroboros, 1989. ISBN 0-920301-12-6.
- "The Pleasure of Lusting" poetry and music script, w. SugarBeat and Colin Morton, for "Poetry in the Park," Strathcona Park, 1998.
- Dangerous Graces: Women's Poetry on Stage, director Jennifer Boyes-Manseau, workshopped by actors at Fireworks festival, 1987, Great Canadian Theatre Company, w. composer A. McClure.
- Dark Galaxies wordmusic script, workshopped by actors, Page to Stage Festival, National Arts Centre Atelier, w. composer Andrew McClure.
Archibald Lampman Poetry Prize, shortlist, 1992, 2005.
Best Poet in Ottawa, SAW Gallery Apple Awards, shortlist, 2003.
Jane Jordan Poetry Awards, HM in 1994, 2nd place 1996, 3rd place 1998.
Canadian Author's Association, Ottawa, Poetry, HM 1994.
League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Contest Anthology 1993.
Canadian Author's Association National Poetry Award shortlist 1992.
CBC National Literary Contest, poetry, shortlist 1988 and 1991
