A powerful collection from one of our most gifted and widely read poets117 of her finest poems drawn from her seven published volumes.Michael Ondaatje has called Sharon Oldss poetry pure fire in the hands and cheered the roughness and humor and brag and tenderness and completion in her work as she carries the reader through rooms of passion and loss. This rich selection exhibits those qualities in poem after poem, reflecting, moreover, an exciting experimentation with rhythm and language and a movement toward an embrace beyond the personal. Subjects are revisitedthe pain of childhood, adolescent sexual stirrings, the fulfillment of marriage, the wonder of childrenbut each recasting penetrates ever more deeply, enriched by new perceptions and conceits.Strike Sparks is a testament to this remarkable poets continuing and amazing growth.From the Hardcover edition.