SUSAN WISMER

Photo by: Frances Morency
BOOK RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Hand Shadows is now available for purchase!

Hand Shadows
Poetry by Susan Wismer. Choreography by Michele Green, Suzette Sherman, and David Earle. Photography by David Earle, Michael English, and Michele Green.
In the winter of 2020, believing that the pandemic would soon end, Suzette Sherman and Michele Green, of Passionate Heart—Women’s Stories Through Dance, invited Susan Wismer, poet, and several other creative women working in various genres to join with them in creating a series of collaborative performances. Upheavals and uncertainties continued, bringing into sharp relief the enlivening capacity of artistic expression during difficult times. In the end three live performances of Hand Shadows were possible during 2021 and 2022.
Audience members commented on how affected there were by the sense of authenticity, community and inspiration they felt, even with all the precautions of the times fully in place. Hand Shadows was created through a collective and evolving process of pairing dances from existing Passionate Heart repertoire with possible poems. In rehearsal, poems and dances were in conversation, reshaping one another. When someone suggested a book, it seemed like a good idea, a way to share the process and the program with a wider audience.
https://www.wintergreenstudios.com/titles/hand-shadows
Hand Shadows is now available for purchase on Amazon!

Hag Dances
How will I move through this time before?
I know so little even now of the ways of birds and trees.
Hag, an old woman. Hag, an overhang at the edge of a cliff.
Hagios, a Greek word for holy.
Star Goddess Hag, Amara Hollowbones.
Mixed Media. Used with permission.
Photo credit: Margaret Rossiter
A few recent poems -
Inclement
The Goose, Fall 2023
North of Verona, Canoe Lake Road
In Book of Night, ed. Lorna Crozier, Wintergreen Studios Press, chapbook series, October 2023
Advice
Qwerty 45, Summer 2022; reposted for Poetry Pause, League of Canadian Poets, September 20, 2023