Tribute to Poet Sandra McPherson
This is goodbye to a penpal friend. For the years of correspondence, especially during pandemic isolation. For encouraging and praising my work. Sandy said of my ode to her: “You live in a little bungalow in my word-woods. I’ll dwell in the charm of your ode…” What’s better than holding that forever?
Sandra McPherson’s last collection, Speech Crush (Gunpowder Press) came out in 2022. It is incredible. It includes new poems and the entirety of her previous chapbook, The 5150 Poems (Nine Mile Press). She had thought of and hoped for The 5150 Poems as a teaching tool in medical humanities. In 2022 I interviewed her for Psychology Today to discuss the implications for poetics in healing from mental health crisis. A topic she knew intimately for having been institutionalized on an involuntary mental health hold in a California psychiatric ward. She wanted us to know this. She wanted us to see how fragments of a shattered mind can coalesce into poetry over time.
It’s not exaggeration to say she was a genius of poetics. Twenty-two books of poetry, including the National Book Award-nominated The Year of My Birth. She was mentored by Elizabeth Bishop and knew all the great poets of her generation. In my interview I shared that, “Adrienne Rich called her "a master of the unexpected" and Annie Dillard said Sandra has "a miner's eye for translucent color in the earth and a painter's eye for the 'hard catchable light' in the air."“
Sandy adored the west coast, the Pacific Northwest, and recounted stories of life with her beloved husband, poet Walter Pavlich. She amassed a large collection of African-American quilts that she donated to UC-Davis for a special collection. Sandy was professor emeritus at the school. She loved wildflowers and wildlife, rustic pottery, and Japanese culture. She has one daughter, Phoebe, to whom I send my condolences.
—Bradley David W
