Ellipses

The poems in Ellipses are extractions, explorations, and, finally, moments of alternate life experiences that are so often left to the gaps of historical record.Ellipses was inspired by a trinity of personal events: the birth of Andrea MacPherson's daughter and the deaths of both of her grandmothers. After they died, MacPherson came to realize that she did not really know their stories, and would never be able to ask them. In Ellipses she reimagines familiar lore to recreate the lives of these two extraordinary women. This exploration leads to other marginalized voices in history -- including Suzanne Valadon and the models who posed for Bellocq -- and their stories.Ellipses reclaims the often obscured realities of motherhood, illness, and the struggles of these women for independence?in verse.

Andrea MacPherson, a poet and novelist, holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She has published two novels, When She Was Electric (Raincoast, 2003) and Beyond the Blue (Random House, 2007), and two previous collections of poems, Natural Disasters (Palimpsest Press, 2007) and Away (Signature Editions, 2008). She is the reviews editor for Event, a past editor of Prism International, and teaches creative writing and literature at the University of the Fraser Valley. She lives in Cloverdale, BC.