McMASTER, Susan 1950-

PERSONAL: Born August 11, 1950, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; daughter of Gordon George and Betty Isobel Emily (Page) McClure; married Ian McMaster, July 5, 1969; children: Sarah Aven, Sylva Morel. Education: Carleton University, B.A., 1970, M.A. (journalism), 1980; Ottawa Teachers' College, elementary teaching certificate, 1971. Religion: Society of Friends (Quakers). Hobbies and other interests: Music, canoeing, horseback riding.

ADDRESSES: Home—43 Belmont Ave., Ottawa, Ontario K1S 0T9, Canada. Office—National Gallery of Canada, Publications, 380 Sussex Dr., P.O. Box 427, Stn. A., Ottawa, Ontario K1N 9N4, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Poet, writer, editor, performance artist, and producer. Teacher, Edmonton public schools, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 1971-73; freelance editor and writer, 1973-89; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, book editor, 1989—. Branching Out, founding editor, 1973-75, associate, 1975-80; cofounder, First Draft (intermedia performance art group), 1980-90; member of SugarBeat (music poetry group; now GeOde Music & Poetry), 1990—; editor-in-chief, Vernissage.

MEMBER: PEN International, League of Canadian Poets.

AWARDS, HONORS: Canada Council Explorations grant; Writers' Trust Fund grant.

WRITINGS:

POETRY

Seven Poems, Ouroboros (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1983.

Dark Galaxies, Ouroboros (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1986.

Lac Vert, 1985, illustrated by Irene Hofmann, Anthos Books (Perth, Ontario, Canada), 1987.

The Hummingbird Murders, Quarry Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1992.

Learning to Ride, illustrated by Robert Verrall, Quarry Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

Uncommon Prayer: A Book of Dedications, Quarry Press (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

POETRY; RECORDED

(With First Draft) Wordmusic, 1986.

First Draft at Carleton, 1992.

(Coauthor) Dangerous Times, 1996.

(With SugarBeat) How Dandelions Prey, 1998.

SugarBeat Music & Poetry, 1998.

Primate Wind, 1998. (With GeOde Music & Poetry) GeOde Music & Poetry, 1999.

OTHER

(With Andrew McClure and Claude Dupuis) Pass ThisWay Again: A Collection of Performance Poetry, edited by B. P. Nichol, Underwhich Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1983.

(With Andrew McClure and Colin Morton) North/South: Performance Scores for One to Seven Speakers (word/music scores), Underwhich Editions (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1987.

(Editor) Dangerous Graces: Women's Poetry on Stage from "Fire Works!": A Celebration of Women's Theatre, Canadian Theatre Company (poetry script anthology), Balmuir (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1987.

(Editor, with Cathy Ford) Margaret Christakos and others, Illegitimate Positions: Women and Language, Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1992.

(Editor) Two Women Talking: Correspondence 1985-87, Erin Moure and Bronwen Wallace, Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1993.

(Editor, with Colin Morton) Bookware: Ottawa ValleyPoets, League of Canadian Poets (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

(Editor) Siolence: Poets on Women, Violence, andSilence, Quarry Women's Books (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), 1998.

(Editor) Waging Peace: Poetry and Political Action, Penumbra Press (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Contributor to numerous anthologies, including Celebrating Canadian Women: Poetry and Short Stories by and about Women, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1989;Capital Poets: An Ottawa Anthology, Ouroboros, 1989; Labor of Love, 1989; When Is a Poem 2, 1992; Women and Violence, League of Canadian Poets, 1993; Poets in the Classroom, Pembroke Press, 1995; and Vintage 93, Quarry Press. Contributing editor for magazines ARC and Quarry.

WORK IN PROGRESS: How Chairs Pray, for Quarry Press; A Room at the Heart of Things, for Vehicúle; Waking Dreams, Bitter Prayers, a poetry manuscript.

SIDELIGHTS: Susan McMaster is a poet and performance artist who has produced her work in a variety of media and venues. She also was a founding member of the intermedia group First Draft, which is composed of Canadian artists from a range of disciplines, including poets, writers, visual artists, and musicians. The group performed her poetry and "wordmusic" (spoken words set to music) around Canada and on the radio from 1981 to 1990. McMaster left First Draft in 1990 to become the poet for SugarBeat Music and Poetry, now known as GeOde Music and Poetry. Her poems are set to jazz, blues, contemporary, folk, and electroacoustic musical styles. The group performs its original material at music festivals, galleries, clubs, the National Library, and other places around Canada. McMaster's poems and lyrics, set to music by such composers as David Parsons, John Armstrong, Quinn Redekop, and Mike Essoudry, have been performed by contemporary, jazz, and sound poetry groups as well as at theater and poetry workshops.

McMaster also combined contributions from seventeen Canadian women poets to produce the script Dangerous Graces/Saving Sins, presented at the month-long festival of women's theater, Fire Works!, and produced by the Greater Canadian Theatre Company. It was later published in book form as Dangerous Graces: Women's Poetry on Stage from "Fire Works!": A Celebration of Women's Theatre, Canadian Theatre Company.

Reviewer Heather Jones noted in Canadian Literature, that "The poems . . . work through the manifold frustrations of women's experience in patriarchy in order to realize women's empowerment through spirituality." The critic concluded, "Her skillful interweaving of woman-oriented themes and performance art makes Dangerous Graces an innovative example of alternative theater."

Among McMaster's published poetry is Uncommon Prayer, her fourth collection. According to Kim Fahner in Canadian Book Review Annual, this book "ably evokes 'God' as a creative force that is metaphorically transformed in the environment that surrounds us." Noting that McMaster's "dominant motif" in these verses is prayer, Fahner concluded that "McMaster's busy world that usually doesn't wait for anyone."

Learning to Ride contains poems chronicling the experience of taking horseback riding lessons as an adult. "Particularly well done are the poems describing the special relationship that develops between horse and rider," commented Sheila Martindale in Canadian Book Review Annual. Mary Dalton, in Books in Canada, found Learning to Ride a book that "delights in energy, verbs, the tension and speed of riding." Pointing out that the book includes a "useful glossary of terms" about horse riding that will assist readers, Pat Bolger said in Canadian Materials that this collection "will appeal to young readers who ride—or dream of doing so."

McMaster is also the editor of Siolence: Poets on Women, Violence and Silence, a collection of essays and poems from members of the Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets. These contributions stem from more than a decade of the League's presentations, readings, and discussions. Each of the book's fourteen sections is devoted to a different poet, and the essays discuss peace/violence and silence (siolence) in styles that range from philosophical to practical. "They are well informed, insightful and thought provoking," wrote Terry Vatrt in an Online Canadian Materials review.

In a statement on the University of Toronto English Library Web site, McMaster described her writing philosophy: "I tend toward the view that the very act of writing poetry drives the poetry perpetrator towards an essentially moral position, because the best poems, the ones that really communicate, that cut close to the bone for reader and writer alike, are the ones that are most true, most compassionate, most universal and thus most widely accepting, most unostentatious and empty of vanity, ego, self-seeking. I also think the nature of poetry is to travel to the depths, the edges, the margins, the exaltations. The rigour of this exploration tends to dissolve racism, sexism, classism, all forms of division and ego-protection." She added, "But I'd aim to write any kind of good poetry not through a set of rules, but by setting out on a quest for honesty and depth and fidelity to the craft. All that said, it's a quest not an arrival."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Books in Canada, November, 1994, Mary Dalton, review of Learning to Ride, p. 54.

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1994, p. 214; 1998, p. 233.

Canadian Literature, spring, 1991, Heather Jones, review of Dangerous Graces: Women's Poetry on Stage from "Fire Works!": A Celebration of Women's Theatre, Canadian Theatre Company, p. 185.

Canadian Materials, October, 1994, Pat Bolger, review of Learning to Ride, p. 175.

OTHER

Canadian Review of Materials Online,http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/ (June 23, 2000), Terry Vatrt, review of Siolence: Poets on Women, Violence, and Silence.

Swifty.com,http://www.swifty.com/ (April 11, 2002), author profile.

University of Toronto English Library Web site,http://www.library.utoronto.ca/ (April 11, 2002), "Susan McMaster, Writing Philosophy."*