Collective residencies / FEMINISMS / Olot
SUSIE HAMMOND
From Monday, 23 October 2017 to Tuesday, 7 November 2017
Bio
A former journalist, editor, publisher, teacher, and arts educator, Susie now writes poetry. Poetry is able to relieve oppression by bringing healing to the loss of human capacity that can present as silence and trauma in oppression’s wake. Poetry can encourage human resilience and foster respect.
Underlying Susie’s poetry is her long-standing interest in the evolution, science, and aesthetics of human symbol-making to express human connection. She explores the power of language and questions how that power’s used, to consider alternatives to dynamics of domination, and to contribute to developing models of relationality.
Susie is an alumna of California’s Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and of Alberta, Canada’s Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Dalcroze rhythm studies have featured her poetry and fiction. A new poem is forthcoming in The Squaw Valley Review.
Project
At Faber, Susie will be continuing her research and generating new poems to include in a collection-in-progress. Her collection’s working title is Daughters and Journeys. Its scope is oppression, healing and connection through a relational Feminist lens.
Feminisms Residency at Faber Expanded World Views
My sincere thanks for a professionally productive and personally rewarding experience during Faber’s recent Feminisms residency. It was a privilege to be in residence with such “makers,” women who are making differences globally to humanity through their various foci in society —in the social sciences, education, literature, economics, peace, sustainability and communication. The cross —cultural and cross— generational understanding generated as a result of being in these women’s daily company, and the opportunity to immerse myself in my work and in your host culture at a critical time in Catalonia’s history have expanded my world view.
I especially would like to acknowledge the support of the hotel staff, your personal administrative, technical and logistical support and exceptional kindness in guiding Sunday outings to nearby places of interest we otherwise would not have had the opportunity to appreciate, and the financial support of the Ajuntament d’Olot and the Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura.