Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Susan Millar DuMars (pictured) to the Friday Poets series. She'll be reading on Monday, 27 April, at the Troubadour in London, along with some other very fine Irish poets.
She is an American writer based in Galway, Ireland, born in 1966. She received a
bursary from the Irish Arts Council for her book of short stories, Stupid Slim Neck Audrey Hepburn Dreams. Susan contributes a column on the arts to the Galway Advertiser.
She is married to the poet Kevin Higgins and together they coordinate the well known Over the Edge readings series in Galway. Her recent poetry collection, Big Pink Umbrella, from Salmon, was to my mind an excellent debut, and I look forward to what she publishes next.
Her writing manages to be both artful and very true, and is therefore often quite effective. One gets the sense that here is a writer who has lived, is living, and is sharing depths of experience, generously.
Fallen 1973
Jesus - a snappy dresser
in cranberry velvet, butterfly sleeves,
Breck girl hair.
And I dress up for Him.
The navy coat with gold buttons
that waits all week,
sighing. I’m seven
and still chew my hair.
I make the world
with each click
of my black buckle shoes.
Sunday school - my chair rears up on its
hind legs, a stallion I am
taming. I’m good with wild things,
patient, fearless. Repeat :
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep...
(But death is a nothing, a nonsense word;
my life a party that no one ever leaves...)
Falling is like waking up.
The strings are cut.
My teacher lifts me from the floor,
rights my chair.
I cry because
No One caught me.
Nothing held me there.
poem by Susan Millar DuMars
She is an American writer based in Galway, Ireland, born in 1966. She received a
bursary from the Irish Arts Council for her book of short stories, Stupid Slim Neck Audrey Hepburn Dreams. Susan contributes a column on the arts to the Galway Advertiser.She is married to the poet Kevin Higgins and together they coordinate the well known Over the Edge readings series in Galway. Her recent poetry collection, Big Pink Umbrella, from Salmon, was to my mind an excellent debut, and I look forward to what she publishes next.
Her writing manages to be both artful and very true, and is therefore often quite effective. One gets the sense that here is a writer who has lived, is living, and is sharing depths of experience, generously.
Fallen 1973
Jesus - a snappy dresser
in cranberry velvet, butterfly sleeves,
Breck girl hair.
And I dress up for Him.
The navy coat with gold buttons
that waits all week,
sighing. I’m seven
and still chew my hair.
I make the world
with each click
of my black buckle shoes.
Sunday school - my chair rears up on its
hind legs, a stallion I am
taming. I’m good with wild things,
patient, fearless. Repeat :
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep...
(But death is a nothing, a nonsense word;
my life a party that no one ever leaves...)
Falling is like waking up.
The strings are cut.
My teacher lifts me from the floor,
rights my chair.
I cry because
No One caught me.
Nothing held me there.
poem by Susan Millar DuMars
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