Poems

Ron Rash's poems turn to the rural South, especially the Appalachian region, and to the people who live off its land. The speakers and subjects here are workers and families who have learned to endure poverty and setbacks, and who depend on one another. Their lives unfold in cotton mills, tobacco fields, farms, and forests, places where the seasons and the terrain set the pace of daily work.

Rash moves easily between plain, sparse lines and images of brightness and wonder. He describes the countryside in close detail, noticing small, unexpected things, and he gives weight to the rituals, traditions, and remembered stories that tie a community together. The collection moves through its landscapes at a steady pace, pausing at the places where hardship and beauty meet.

Rash is also known for his fiction. He is the author of the novels Serena, Something Rich and Strange, and Above the Waterfall, as well as short stories. Readers who know his prose will find the same attention to place and character in his verse.