About the Author
Cyra Sweet Dumitru, MA, PPM
Cyra Sweet Dumitru is a published poet, instructor of poetry, writing coach, former medical writer, and one of four certified practitioners of poetic medicine living in Texas. She served as faculty in the Department of English for 20 years at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, and developed curriculum for the Institute of Poetic Medicine as faculty for the Practitioner of Poetic Medicine training program. Her poems have appeared on the walls of San Antonio’s City Hall, on city buses, been spoken on national public radio, appeared in city newspapers and national literary journals, and been read in dozens of bookstores and museums.
Her four collections of poems include: What the Body Knows (Orchard Press), Listening to Light (River Lily Press), Remains (Pecan Grove Press) and Elder Moon (Finishing Line Press). Cyra offers therapeutic writing circles for adults learning to live creatively with trauma, bereavement, depression, and anxiety. She lives in San Antonio, Texas with her family.
Cyra has been in a creative relationship with words and writing for most of her life. Her career spans:
Poet-in-the-Schools for the San Antonio Independent School District & for the Northeast Independent School District.
Medical Writer & Managing Editor, Eastern Virginia Medical Authority, Norfolk, VA
Writer-in-the-Community & Faculty through Gemini Ink Literary Arts Center, San Antonio, TX
Writer-in-Residence, Children’s Bereavement Center of San Antonio
Medical Writer & Managing Editor, Southwest Texas Methodist Hospital, San Antonio, TX
Independent Writer, Methodist Healthcare Ministries, San Antonio, TX
Independent Writer, H.E. Butt Foundation, Kerrville, TX
Faculty, Department of English Literature & Language, St. Mary’s University, 20 years, San Antonio, TX
Alice P. Franzke Feminist Award for Faculty 2011, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio
“Moving Metaphors: From Traumatized to Revitalized through Writing Extended Metaphors”, 75-minute presentation to professionals, National Association of Poetry Therapy, Chicago, IL, April 2012
“Poetry as a Pathway for Peace” Performance featuring Irish poet Padraig O’Tuama and Cyra Dumitru, Assumption Chapel, St. Mary’s University, November 2013
Certified Practitioner of Poetic Medicine in 2015, The Institute for Poetic Medicine (IPM), Palto Alto, CA (One of four CPPM in Texas as of 2024)
Founder of “In the Shelter of Poetry Circle” a therapeutic writing circle offered in conjunction with the student counseling center at St. Mary’s University, Poetry Partner with IPM for this work
Co-faculty & Writing Mentor, Institute for Poetic Medicine, Certification in Poetic Medicine Practice, Palo Alto, CA
Practitioner of Poetic Medicine, The Ecumenical Center for Education, Counseling & Religion (Founder of The Soul’s Journey Poetry Circle which has served the community continuously for 10 years, and Art of our Hearts Writing Circle for Women Veterans for 4 years)
Co-creator in 2020 of Care for the Caregivers Project, which brought, for three years, the expressive arts into hospitals as emotional support for healthcare professionals, experiencing the extraordinary stress and trauma of pandemic
Co-creator in 2021 of Poetic Rhythms Circle with Music Therapist Marisa Castro which uniquely blended aspects of drum circle with poem-making, sponsored by The Ecumenical Center
Practitioner of Poetic Medicine
Certified in Poetic Medicine through the Institute for Poetic Medicine (IPM) in 2014, Cyra has facilitated hundreds of therapeutic writing circles for people of all ages: children and teens dealing with grief, college students confronting their anxieties and traumatic histories, women veterans, elders building a sense of community while coming to terms with loss, and adults from various walks of life who seek renewal while exploring what it means to be an embodied soul in a beautiful, hurtful world.
For more information regarding how Cyra offers her skills as a Practitioner of Poetic Medicine, please contact her at: cyradumitru@earthlink.net
Published Poet
Single Author Texts:
Words Make A Way Through Fire: Healing From My Brother’s Suicide, She Writes Press, 2025
Elder Moon: Memoir Told as Poems, Finishing Line Press, 2019
Remains, Pecan Grove Press, 2008
Listening to Light, River Lily Press, 2003
What the Body Knows, Pecan Grove Press, 1999
Publications: Anthologies
Voices of the Grieving Heart, edited by Mike Bernhardt, Cypress Point Press, 2021
Pandemic Puzzle Poems, Blue Light Press, 2021
Again and Again, Christians in the Visual Arts, 2021
The Larger Geometry, Poems for Peace;, peaceCenter Books, 2018
San Antonio Tricentennial Anthology, 2018
Weaving the Terrain, 100 Word Poems, Dos Gatos Press, 2017
Bearing the Mask, Southwestern Persona Poems, Dos Gatos Press, 2016
VIA Poems on the Move, San Antonio VIA Bus System, 2014
Wingbeats, Exercises and Practice in Poetry, Dos Gatos Press, 2011
Big Sky, Big Land, Big Hair, Dos Gatos Press, 2009
Woman at the Well House, Women’s Prayer and Poetry, 2009
Layers of Possibility, Healing Poetry, Palabras Press, 2007
Is This Forever or What? Greenwillow Press, 2006
Keeping Company, Pecan Grove Press, 1996
Green Rain, San Antonio Independent School District, 1983
Awards
San Ysidro Writer’s Residency, South Texas, March 2020
“For the White Helmets: Syrian Civil Defense Workers” received Third Place National from the 2020 Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest
“Footage” received Honorable Mention in the 2018 Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest