Sharan Strange (born 1959) is an African-American poet, activist, and professor.
Sharan Strange | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1959 (age 64–65) |
| Occupation |
|
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Harvard College Sarah Lawrence College (MFA) |
| Notable awards | Barnard Women Poets Prize (2000) Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award (2004) |
Life
editShe grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She was educated at Harvard College, and received an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.[1]
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.[2] The Dark Room Collective had a mission of forming a community of new African-American writers. Strange has said: "It was the sustaining practice of writing in community just as much as the activism of building a community-based reading series for writers of color that kept us engaged in collectivity."[3]
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.
Her work has appeared in journals such as Callaloo, The American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Agenda, AGNI,[4] Mosaic, and L-I-N-K-E-D, and in numerous anthologies.
Awards
edit- 1998 D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Award
- 2000 Barnard Women Poets Prize, for Ash, selected by Sonia Sanchez
- 2004 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award
- 2009 Pushcart Prize nomination
Works
edit- "CHILDHOOD; STREETCORNER CHURCH; WORDS DURING WAR; THE FACTORY; SEDUCTION; ASH". Beltway Poetry Quarterly. 3 (1). Winter 2002.
- "In Praise of the Young and Black"; "Their Voices Drawing Her", L-I-N-K-E-D:The Online Journal
- "Unforgettable", Poet's Moment, NPR
- "Hunger", AGNI 56, 2002
- Ash. Beacon Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8070-6863-2.
Anthologies
editIncluding:
- Nagueyalti Warren, ed. (2008). Temba Tupu! Africana Women's Poetic Self-Portrait. Africa World Press. ISBN 978-1-59221-240-8.
- Nikky Finney, ed. (2007). The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-2926-0.
- Clarence Major, ed. (1996). The Garden Thrives: Twentieth-Century African American Poetry. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-055364-7.
- A. R. Ammons, ed. (1994). The Best American Poetry. Scribners. ISBN 0-671-51004-5.
- Kevin Powell; Ras Baraka, eds. (1992). In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers. Writers & Readers Publishing. ISBN 978-0-86316-316-6.
References
edit- ^ "Sharan Strange". Poetry Foundation. 2017-06-14. Retrieved 2017-06-14.
- ^ Gordinier, Jeff (2014-05-27). "The Dark Room Collective: Where Black Poetry Took Wing". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-06-14.
- ^ "A Brief Guide to the Dark Room Collective | Academy of American Poets". www.poets.org. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
- ^ "AGNI Online". 31 May 2022.
External links
edit- Strange reads "Unforgettable" on NPR (May 20, 2005)