{{short description|American poet (born 1959)}} {{infobox writer |name=Sharan Strange |birth_date={{birth year and age|1959}} |occupation={{flatlist| *Poet *activist *professor }} |nationality=American |education=Harvard College<br>Sarah Lawrence College (MFA) |awards=Barnard Women Poets Prize (2000)<br>Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award (2004) }} '''Sharan Strange''' (born 1959) is an African-American poet, activist, and professor.

==Life== She grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She was educated at Harvard College, and received an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/sharan-strange|title=Sharan Strange|date=2017-06-14|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en-us|access-date=2017-06-14}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/arts/the-dark-room-collective-where-black-poetry-took-wing.html|title=The Dark Room Collective: Where Black Poetry Took Wing|last=Gordinier|first=Jeff|date=2014-05-27|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-06-14|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-dark-room-collective|title=A Brief Guide to the Dark Room Collective {{!}} Academy of American Poets|website=www.poets.org|access-date=2016-04-02}}</ref>

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'',<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.bu.edu/agni/authors/S/Sharan-Strange.html | title=AGNI Online | date=31 May 2022 }}</ref> ''Mosaic'', and ''L-I-N-K-E-D'', and in numerous anthologies.

==Awards==

*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== * {{cite journal| url=http://washingtonart.com/beltway/strange.html| title=CHILDHOOD; STREETCORNER CHURCH; WORDS DURING WAR; THE FACTORY; SEDUCTION; ASH| journal=Beltway Poetry Quarterly| volume=3| issue=1| date=Winter 2002 }} * [http://www.spelman.edu/bush-hewlett/linked/sharan_strange_poems.html "In Praise of the Young and Black"; "Their Voices Drawing Her", ''L-I-N-K-E-D:The Online Journal''] * [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4659981 "Unforgettable", ''Poet's Moment'', NPR] * [http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/print/2002/56-strange.html "Hunger", ''AGNI 56'', 2002] * {{cite book| title=Ash| publisher=Beacon Press| year=2001| isbn=978-0-8070-6863-2 }}

===Anthologies=== Including: *{{cite book| title=Temba Tupu! Africana Women's Poetic Self-Portrait| editor=Nagueyalti Warren | publisher=Africa World Press| year=2008| isbn=978-1-59221-240-8}} * {{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMMCB-_-xFYC&q=Sharan%20Strange&pg=PA65| title=The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South | editor=Nikky Finney| publisher=University of Georgia Press| year=2007| isbn=978-0-8203-2926-0 }} * {{cite book| title=The Garden Thrives: Twentieth-Century African American Poetry| url=https://archive.org/details/gardenthrivestwe00majo| url-access=registration| editor=Clarence Major | publisher=Harper Perennial| year=1996| isbn=978-0-06-055364-7 }} *{{cite book| title=The Best American Poetry| editor=A. R. Ammons | publisher=Scribners| year=1994| isbn=0-671-51004-5}} * {{cite book| title=In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers | url=https://archive.org/details/intradition00kevi | url-access=registration |editor1=Kevin Powell |editor2=Ras Baraka| publisher=Writers & Readers Publishing | year=1992| isbn=978-0-86316-316-6 }}

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4659981 Strange reads "Unforgettable"] on NPR (May 20, 2005) {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strange, Sharan}} Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Harvard College alumni Category:Sarah Lawrence College alumni Category:Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award winners Category:20th-century American poets Category:21st-century American poets Category:People from Orangeburg, South Carolina Category:Poets from South Carolina Category:20th-century African-American writers Category:20th-century African-American women writers Category:21st-century African-American writers Category:21st-century African-American women writers Category:African-American women poets Category:African-American poets Category:20th-century American women poets Category:21st-century American women poets