Sou MacMillan

A veteran of the early and mid-nineties Columbus, OH indie music scene, Sou MacMillan was the voice behind Caroline/Double Deuce band Pet Ufo, which coined the term Tantrum Rock in the heyday of post-grunge and riot grrl politic. Not that much has changed in a decade – she still considers poetry as a much underestimated form of music, and she still finds herself a sort of activist for the blurring of lines between media, adding visual art to the mix over more than a decade of performance and publications.

Former co-editor of Poetry Fly, and sole editor for Omnivore Magazine, MacMillan has had her hands in small press, recording, and performance poetry since 1989. She has competed on four National Poetry Slam teams for Worcester, MA, including the championship finalist team in 1997 at CT, and she has completed two novels, the most recent, Chrysanthemum, currently being serialized on GotPoetry.com.

She has been published in numerous anthologies, including the 1995 Bottomdog Coffeehouse Poetry Anthology and Manic D Press's, Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry, as well as publication in 2X4, The Worcester Review, and The Boston Poet. In 2004 she was honored as a winner of the Jacob Knight Prize for poetry. Sou also currently performs with Daily Mouse who released their first full-length cd, If Money Burns, a collection of music & poetry, in 2003.

Shallow Empire (Lethe Press) is the next logical step for MacMillan, a volume of poetry including the performance piece The House, in which she investigates the places we live and have lived, and the things that resonate there.

What people are saying:

In these poems, Sou MacMillan scribes an empire as open as a freeway, as vulnerable as a heartbeat, as promising as an open door, inevitable as a meadow's overgrowth. They'll capture and transport you like a favorite song playing on someone else's car radio as it drives down the street, leaving you on the sidewalk grinning remember when, forgetting your keys to the now are in your hand. She's what you meant to say, what you might have forgotten was so powerful.
- Daphne Gottlieb
Author of Why Things Burn, and editor of the much-acclaimed Softskull anthology, Homewrecker

Sou MacMillian has tapped into the current that blazes through language and crafted work that is unapologetic and fiercely lyrical. With their unerring visuals and stark narrative, the poems in Shallow Empire are like snippets of cinema-lush, startling and ultimately unforgettable.
- Patricia Smith
Author of Teahouse of the Almighty, four-time individual National Poetry Slam Champion