Streamers

The ``streamers'' that billow through McPherson's fifth collection of poems include a pulsing medusa's tentacles, women's long hair hanging over a dock, eddies of strontium 90 in the poisoned atmosphere. Mother Nature, this poet implies, is restorative, a source of spiritual food to those who can appreciate her minor miracles; but shutting out nature, or abusing her, brings dis-ease. In clean, crafted lines, McPherson discovers the female powers resonating within her own body (``Eye''); she strives for universal compassion (``Elegy for Floating Things''), pens a naughty note to Sappho, sketches precise life studies of flowers, wild radishes, a ledge by a lake. This uneven collection includes lyrics on her unspoken bonds of love with her daughter, reflections on a long-lasting marriage, occasional pieces on a YWCA and on Hazel Hall, a blind poet confined to a wheelchair. (October)