Edge Effect: Trails and Portrayals - Paperback

by Sandra McPherson (Author)

Constructed in two parts, this collection embraces secretly related worlds: the poetics of natural history and artistic discoveries of self-taught folk artists.

Edge Effect is Sandra McPherson's most original work to date. Constructed in two parts, the collection embraces secretly related worlds: the poetics of natural history and artistic discoveries of self-taught folk artists. Throughout, waves from one poem mark the shores of others. In natural history, an edge effect occurs where two communities, such as land and sea, overlap, that zone becoming more diversified than each of them. McPherson explores this effect in nature and art, questioning our notions of inside and outside, center and margin. Profound and moving, she recasts the very premises of formal understanding in poetry, accommodating at once the arts of nature and the nature of art.

Back Jacket

Edge Effect is Sandra McPherson's most original work to date. Constructed in two parts, the collection embraces secretly related worlds: the poetics of natural history and artistic discoveries of self-taught folk artists.

Author Biography

SANDRA MCPHERSON is Professor of English at the University of California, Davis, and the author of twelve books, including The Spaces Between Birds (1996), The God of Indeterminacy (1993), and Streamers (1988). Her book The Year of Our Birth (1978) was nominated for the National Book Award and she has been featured on the Bill Moyers series The Language of Life. She is Professor of English at the University of California, Davis.