KAREN MCPHERSON, POET & TRANSLATOR
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​Karen McPherson is a poet and translator,
a former member/editor of the Airlie Press publishing collective,
​and Professor Emerita ​of French ​at the University of Oregon.





​New publication summer 2024:
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Long for This World

poems by Karen McPherson

Seven Kitchens Summer Kitchen series
chapbook



A few copies of this limited edition chapbook are still available to order at
Seven Kitchens Press​
or you can order directly from me (send email message through Contact Me page).

The poems in Long for This World are superb. 
I admire the poet’s passion for the right word, punctuation, 
nuance, and for sometimes allowing jauntiness in the face of aging.
       —Quinton Hallett, author of Mrs. Schrödinger’s Breast
 
 
What I love in the shape of this chapbook is how gracefully 
the poet’s concerns with language, and translation, and aging
are all present though not necessarily in ways anyone could predict. 
I’m so glad this book has found its way into the world.
     —Maxine Scates, author of My Wilderness

​The poem "Long for This World" was nominated for a 2024 Pushcart.



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          Up Close
                                          
             
          poems by Louise Dupré
               translation by
            Karen McPherson  
                                                 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
             (Ekstasis Editions 2023) 
            ISBN: 978-1-77171-486-0                                                                

​                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                








​

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

​Order Up Close here from Ekstasis Editions                                                                                                                                       
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Skein of Light (Airlie Press, 2014)
    2015 FINALIST
for Eric Hoffer
Grand Prize Book Award

        HONORABLE MENTION

in Poetry category




McPherson illumines scenes of the world we all share. With a deft hand for handling language, she composes sketches that draw a distant Paris near and lament the distance between two lovers. In this life that contains both living and dead, the reader sees her, "joins" her in her attempt to "haul in every trick of light / and birdsong I can net / to keep afloat." These well-crafted, meditative poems paint pictures of everyday scenes in which McPherson's words coalesce the meaning of communication: "Now every handmade shift in my color-coded closet / is trying to dress up what you mean to say."   
-- Eric Hoffer prize judge

From the Publisher: "The luminous poems in Karen McPherson’s Skein of Light pull and gather toward horizons of reflection. In language that repeatedly reveals what it can and cannot do, the poet maps landscapes of memory where sharp-edged questions disturb the stillness. The personal and human are deftly threaded through a natural world made legible in flights of birds, bending grasses, rock striations. And through this open work, the reader steps into a place both familiar and unknown" -- Airlie Press
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