Ash

"Ash embodies a voice we can count on, informed by the grace and wit of the South. Sharan Strange has wrested these poignant poems out of experience and imagination, and they sizzle with a deep knowing. Family and neighborhood are unique and universal. We know these people and places through a painful and joyful directness-everything that is noble in its full telling rises from Ash and touches us." -Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Talking Dirty to the Gods and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Neon Vernacular"What I cherish so much in Sharan Strange's poetry is her ability to firmly locate time-tested insight-what our ancestors called common sense-securely and consistently in everyday experience. The results render a depth of articulation so provocative that the poetry becomes a positive and permanently useful part of the reader's psyche." -Clarence Major, editor of The Garden Thrives: Twentieth-Century African-American Poetry