Sharan Strange

Sharan Strange Poems

Summer brought fireflies in swarms.
They lit our evenings like dreams
we thought we couldn't have.
We caught them in jars, punched
...

Is grace delivered
on twilight wings of air?
Don't ask this congregation.
They'd shout 'Yes!'
...

The landlady's low hum of Spanish
prayer mixes with the sound
of eastbound planes overhead. She
lights candles for the people there
...

Not the round, shining globe
of the eye in profile,
nor the fissure of a smile calling,
as the earthquake does, some part of itself
...

Combing the papers for summer jobs
nothing that seems absurd now, or
the obvious hustle, was beneath us;
our need was rampant as newsprint,
...

Sharan Strange Biography

Sharan Strange (born 1959) is an American poet. She grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She was educated at Harvard College, and received an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She served as a contributing and advisory editor of Callaloo, and co-founder of the Dark Room Collective (1988-1998) and co-curator of the Dark Room Reading Series. Strange has been a writer-in-residence at Fisk University, Spelman College, Wheaton College, the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, the University of California at Davis, California Institute of the Arts, and Georgia Institute of Technology. She currently teaches writing at Spelman College.)

The Best Poem Of Sharan Strange

Childhood

Summer brought fireflies in swarms.
They lit our evenings like dreams
we thought we couldn't have.
We caught them in jars, punched
holes, carried them around for days.

Luminous abdomens that when charged
with air turn bright. Imagine!
mere insects carrying such cargo,
magical caravans flickering beneath
low July skies. We chased them, amazed.

The idea! Those tiny bodies
pulsing phosphorescence.
They made reckless traffic,
signaling, neon flashes forever
into the deepening dusk.

They gave us new faith
in the nasty tonics of childhood-
pungent, murky liquids promising
shining eyes, strong teeth, glowing skin-
and we silently vowed to swallow ever after.

What was the secret of light?
We wanted their brilliance-
small fires hovering,
each tiny explosion
the birth of a new world.

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