Salmon
Poetry invites you to the launch by Ailbhe Darcy of Naked: New and Selected poems by Susan
Millar DuMars at the House Hotel, Spanish Parade, Galway on Sunday, April 14th at 2pm. All welcome.
These poems were written and published over twenty five years. There are poems from each of DuMars’
four previous collections – Big Pink Umbrella (2008), Dreams for
Breakfast (2010), The God Thing (2013), and Bone Fire (2016) – along with a generous selection of new
work. Here is demonstrated the
development of a poet born in twentieth century America and now dwelling in
twenty first century Ireland; a voice all the more valuable for its hybrid
nature.
When she writes of bodies (her own, the bodies of women, and the
body of the nation), Millar DuMars uses plain and direct speech, ideally suited
to the Galway of Savita Halappanavar and “The Lost Children of Tuam”...Millar DuMars draws from a deep technical well, and from rich observational
and imaginative spaces. She is possessed of great empathy. Even when the voice
rises in anger, it does so to clarify, record, and instruct. Naked: New and Selected is also a book of fables, stories, and
magical convergences where public and buried lives are brought out into the
light. – poet Eamonn Wall, author of Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions (Notre Dame Press,
2011)
Her poetry, influenced by the
directness of the American tradition, comes as a breath of fresh air... Jessica Traynor, Poetry Ireland Review
The poetry of DuMars is known for its
sensuality, which comes across in the concentration on detail...imagery we can
almost taste and feel...writing that lingers in the mind long after the book
has been closed. Adele Ward,
Eyewear
Susan Millar DuMars treads her own
tightrope with sureness and poise while avoiding showy gestures – all prayer
and no pretension. John Hudson, Markings
 |
| Ailbhe Darcy reading at this year's TS Eliot Awards |
Ailbhe
Darcy was born in Dublin in 1981 and brought up there. She studied for her PhD
and MFA at the University of Notre Dame in the US, and taught there and at the
University of Münster in Germany. She is now a lecturer in creative writing at
Cardiff University. She has published her poetry in Ireland, Britain and the
US. Selections of her work are included in the Bloodaxe anthologies Identity
Parade and Voice Recognition, and in her pamphlet A Fictional
Dress (tall-lighthouse, 2009). Imaginary Menagerie (Bloodaxe Books,
2011), her first book-length collection, was shortlisted for Ireland's dlr
Strong Award at Poetry Now / Mountains to Sea. A collaboration with S.J.
Fowler, Subcritical Texts, was published by Gorse in 2017. Her second
collection, Insistence, was published by Bloodaxe in 2018 and was
shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2018 and is on the shortlist for the Irish
Times Poetry Now Award 2019. Ailbhe is reading at this year's Cuirt International Festival of Literature at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on Saturday, April 13th at 11.30am; she is also launching this year's Poem for Patience at University Hospital Galway on Friday, April 12th, 11am.
