With seeming innocence, Sandra S. McRae asks us to “watch how plastic bags and straw wrappers can get caught in the eddy of a breeze,” but then demands “Justify your life” — allowing responses to be double-spaced “when appropriate.” In her hands, “where the hell are the rubber bands?” becomes an existential question. After reading McRae’s poems, we too hear rocks say “It goes faster than you think. We should know,” and we know we are not alone. A magical read.

Review

“Sandra S. McRae’s prose poems tease out insights and intimations overlooked in everyday experience. Just when you think you know where she’s leading you, simple faith gives way to disquiet, fear to serenity, the dance of wit to sober contemplation. ‘Just like me to accidentally start a false religion,’ she dead-pans. But later, pondering big chunks of rock in a quarry, she articulates a mystery of the kind Keats would recognize: ‘The stones are fleshy and solid — I pat their haunches. I hear their spirit voices caught in the network of crystals.’ McRae’s work opens new trails into the world we thought was a settled place, and that makes reading her an exhilarating journey.”
~Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate (2014-2018)

“Prose poems that are more poetry than prose. A rare delight. All from the fresh voice of Sandra S. McRae, an author equally at home with mundane and transcendent subjects. Her rich language spans topics as diverse as cheap seats at a baseball game and children’s empty shoes left behind after the killers’ bullets. She’s as much at ease praising a teacher’s genius as she is damning the remains of her finger ‘when the grapefruit knife failed to persuade the coconut to leave its shell.’ As a bonus she invites the reader into the scientific world of geologic wonders and explores how the animal mind works. One enduring gift of this highly talented writer, no matter what the subject: a genuine emotional depth that makes us want more.”
~Rita Brady Kiefer, author of Nesting Doll (Colorado Book Award finalist) and Crossing Borders

“This is Sandra S. McRae at her best: In print, in a series of concise, humorous, and lyrical pieces. The collection evades categorizations of genre and style; as such it is best read with an open and inquisitive mind. Coyotes learn a garage door code and gain access to the kitchen and living room of a house, helping themselves to Cocoa Puffs, Cheetos, and beer. Illness causes obsessive worry and disappointment that eventually gives way to hope. Shoes fall from students’ feet as they flee a shooting at their school — littering the corridors, the shoes leave a vivid impression on a policeman who witnesses the scene. The collection as a whole imparts a bit of humor, and a bit of wisdom, in the unique voice that is Sandra S. McRae.”
~America Hart, author of into the silence: the fishing story (Library Journal Top 15 Beyond the Bestseller List)

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