Speech Crush

Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing a broken vessel with lines of tree sap and gold, the poems in Sandra McPherson's new book, Speech Crush, run a vein of intelligence and attention through often harrowing experiences-of deep loss, of scammers and self-immolators, of institutionalization and separations that rival those of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." And like the work of Bishop and Leonard Cohen, two poets whose long practice led us to a place whose gates are suffering and wisdom, McPherson's poems ask us to take into ourselves a wrecked, a transformed beauty. Here it is.

- Jordan Smith, author of Little Black Train and Common Spirits

Readers intimately acquainted with Sandra McPherson's vivid, metaphorical voice and her wise poetic conscience over the decades-as well as readers encountering her soul-stirring poems of the environment for the first time, or delighted by her daughter's precise musicality in the title poem-will receive blessings beyond measure from Speech Crush. This dazzling treasury celebrates the bejeweled fruitfulness of a woman's life-journey with the strength and tenderness of a redwood's annular rings. This book is a rare and tremendous gift.

- Karen An-hwei Lee, author of Rose is a Verb: Neo-Georgics, Sonata in K, Phyla of Joy, Ardor, and In Medias Res