A Paper Affair

Susan McMaster is the author of sixteen poetry books and recordings; an editor of anthologies, books, and magazines; and the creator and performer of wordmusic with First Draft and Geode Music & Poetry (a.k.a. SugarBeat).Her recent collection Until the Light Bends was shortlisted for both the Ottawa Book Award and the Archibald Lampman Poetry Prize. She has performed across Canada, and her work has been broadcast on such national shows as WordBeat, Go!, Richardson’s Roundup, As It Happens, and Morningside. Other projects include Dangerous Graces: Women’s Poetry on Stage; Siolence: Women, Violence and Silence; and ”Convergence,“ a millennial project to bring poetry and art from across Canada to Parliament Hill, collected in Waging Peace: Poetry and Political Action. Everyone needs poetry. At the highest and lowest and hardest and most wonderful times, we want it to mark and to say what can’t be otherwise said. We need poetry for the important things – birth, love, hope, loss, fear, grief, hope. Poetry is the language of the deep self; by its ameliorating song. In poems, we can encompass who we are, overcome shame, fear, separateness. In the poem, it’s all right to be human and flawed, and it’s possible for a moment to be an angel.