Ellipses

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