A certain humility is necessary when approaching poetry. In writing, as in reading, you listen to a voice that is not entirely your own— whether it hovers around the edges of fallen cherry blossoms, between the conversation of two people, or in the petals of a painter's orchid— and you let that voice work through you. Hopefully it changes you in some good way. It's a delicious thing, to write a poem, to read a poem.

I have been writing and performing poetry in the Philadelphia area for over 25 years. In my early thirties, I noticed that getting work into print seemed to interest me far less than the oral experience of the poems, and so I consciously chose what I had been unconsciously practicing for some time: I focused my energy into poetry as spoken art. The poem on the printed page was and is important to me insofar as the visuals signal how the words may be said. The shape of the poem gives some idea of the nature of the voice that is coming through the words. The voice is what's important—energy transferred from one to another through sound and breath.

I've presented my work, as well as the work of other poets, in varied settings over the years—cultural centers, nature and environmental centers, art galleries, coffee houses, women's conferences, universities, churches, schools, and in many living rooms—for audiences ranging from the very young to the very old. When delivering a poem, I use the full range of my voice and physical being, as in the heat of a compelling conversation. All my poems I commit to memory, and that frees me to engage with people as I speak.

Collaboration is an increasing delight to me. I love putting my work next to another artist's and watching a third life grow. Synergy in many forms draws me. Musicians work well with this power, and I have learned from working with them. The ring of multiple voices can be compelling in poems as in songs. In 1991, I founded Voices of a Different Dream, an ensemble of women who create a unique and inventive blend of poetry and song. More recently, I explore harmonies with visual artists, as in the Poem-Prints I've created with artists Sara Steele and Alana Lea.

For the past fourteen years I have been steeped in the work of Voices. Out of the live performances of the ensemble grew the need to record something of what we had been creating—hence, Unimagined Possibilities in 1994 and You Know My Name, in 2000. Shortly thereafter, Ellen Mason and I compiled the book Already Near You: Poetry in Concert (2002) a collection of the poems we had been performing together over the years.

During the years of ensemble work, I have also been leading groups and workshops. My groups focus on process rather than product. Whether the medium is writing, reading, or drawing, the aim is simply to be present with ourselves and one another,and with whatever is moving through our lives at the time. Sometimes wonderful art is generated in the groups, and that is always a delight.


It's been a fascinating, unfolding journey—practicing this craft, coming to understand and embody the ways that I must be a poet in the world. So far nothing has happened in the way I might have predicted, but the calling has been clear and consistent through the years. I look. I listen. I record what I hear. I am continually learning how to do this. It is my hope that my poems and all that I do with my voice and breath help to soften and slow the hard-edged, rushed and noisy life in these United States. I want to encourage, in my own heart as well as in my culture, the peace that comes from listening long and well.

Listen to Susan Perform a poem: Jack