Until the Light Bends

by Susan McMaster

In times of loss and grief, we can feel that no one else has ever suffered as much, that somehow we've entered a special realm outside the ordinary round. And yet, we know every other person in the world must pass through some version of the same thing. The first section of this book takes a clear-eyed, but gentle look at what is ordinary in the loss of a friend. While acknowledging the intensity of grief, it reaches for a way to move on. The second half expand this theme to include the other aspects of our lives that can seem so singular from inside, and so shared and human from a wider perspective. Many voices weave in and out through this jokes, dreams, nightmares, children, love, fear, leaving, return. Says poet Penn Kemp, " Until the Light Bends is a green and gorgeous keening, a testament to the solace of nature and of poetry. This powerful work is surely McMaster's best, and very moving. This writing is emblematic of sacred, physical realities ensconced in the daily. The poems capture the dance of response, the distraction of grief through all its intricacies, an extraordinary accomplishment."

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2004

Reviews

[Barbara Sibbald]

So wise and perceptive -- both stellar attributes one covets in a poet, in her work. Mostly about death, which is never anything but ordinary, Susan's work also bends the light, to include the singular and shared, from songs, dreams, children, love, fear and more in a melodious chorus of voices.
She provides new forms: "Starlings" flits about the page "Still enough" bends into an arrow
"Ordinary", her long poem about a friend's death. Two passages:
Is it truly a gain?
that she knows so much?
That they told her the statistics,
showed her the curve
as if it was hope... (p 77)

What use -- all those years
of conversations shared --
if words fail now? (p 79)

A wonder-filled collection.