‘Hope hurts me, prickles / like blood returning’. In her third collection, Susan Millar DuMars writes with compassion and clarity about the terminal illness and death of a family member. The poems question and rage, and find unexpected moments of humour and buoyancy.
DuMars looks for God in the stories of the Bible’s women; in the transcendent paintings of Matisse and the soulful images of Edward Hopper; in the transience of cities, and the freedom and flow of the natural world.
Susan Millar DuMars was born in Philadelphia, and now lives in Galway. Her debut collection, Big Pink Umbrella, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2008, followed by Dreams for Breakfast in 2010. Her work also appears in the anthologies Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland (Dedalus Press, 2010) and the Best Irish Poetry in English (Southword, 2010). She and her husband, the poet Kevin Higgins, have run the acclaimed Over the Edge readings series since 2003.