From movie making to medical misadventures, meditations on widowhood to feminist protestations, Expectation Days is a dazzling portrayal of instances in Sandra McPherson’s life. Her autobiographical collection uses peculiar and exact language to reflect on a wide range of activities that include grouse hunting, going through airport security after 9/11, and climbing a coastal cliff. From being an unintended child to ceremonializing a lifetime “served,” McPherson speaks in both clear and distressing voices from the state of speechless fear that is bereavement.

     Will the little figures ever reach the monument?

A doctor orders me to be on watch.

     Will the mist pass over their cheeks

     and clear the strollers’ eyes?

If so, I’ll see it. I’m on watch.

I train my eyes on paintings

to see if there is any change.

--from “On Suicide Watch”

 
       "I count Sandra McPherson as one of the dozen or so truly outstanding
        American poets who write brilliantly in the Romantic tradition. . . .
        The God of Indeterminacy brings together a group of exciting poems
        showing the vital influence of her interest in the blues tradition and
        in African-American quiltmaking. They are brilliant testimonials to this
        fruitful wedding of the musical, the visual, and the literary."
        -- Clarance Major