- Dorothy
Being a foster kid gave her second-class status, but she was still our hero. An outcast like us, she was an ally against school bullies and neighborhood brats. Though we were all poor, she was rejected for more simple-minded, human reasons. With smoke-dark skin, hair no longer than a snap, and legs covered with sores, any hope she nursed of being found desirable or cherished was revoked. She retaliated with a physical prowess that awed us. Endless chores gave her muscles to rival the older boys’ and she stunned them in short breathless tussles that often drew blood. We envied her a body whose strength matched its rage. At fourteen, she could beat a man. In our small world, she seemed invincible, until we learned her one weakness: a love for my brother which, unreturned, provoked the only fight she willingly lost.
Selected works by Sharan Strange:
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• First Sight
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• Hunger
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• Natural Occurrences
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• Froggy’s Class: South Carolina, 1969
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• Dorothy
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• Mule
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• February 19,1994
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• Ash
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• The Unintended Life
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• The Factory
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• The Stranger
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• The Body
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• An Interview with Sharan Strange
Sharan Strange, a member of the Dark Room Collective, teaches literature and social studies at Parkmont School, an independent non-traditional middle and high school in Washington, D.C. In 1995, she received the M.F.A. degree in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She has been in residence at Yaddo, the Gell Writers’ Center, and the MacDowell Colony. Her poems have appeared in a number of periodicals and anthologies, including Agni, Black Bread, Best American Poetry, 1994 (A. R. Ammons, ed.), The Garden Thrives: Twentieth-Century African-American Poetry (Clarence Major, ed.), and Callaloo. Her poems have also been exhibited at the Whitney Museum (New York) and the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston). She is a native of Orangeburg, South Carolina.