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Sifting the Ashes
A collaborative poetry collection by Bram Stoker Award-winning writers Michael Bailey and Marge Simon—dissecting a fiery world’s relentless destruction.
In Sifting the Ashes, over a hundred individual and collaborative poems explore what it takes to survive after all is suddenly taken. Combined life experiences of love, loss, and personal tragedy sift what’s salvageable from the aftermath of fire, searching through the layers of ash for lessons about death, cremation, and the various stages of grief.
What might be found in the remains after all is lost?
Titles similar to Sifting the Ashes:
-A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng
-Leaves of Grass by Walt Wittman
-Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You by Misha Collins
-Healing Is a Gift by Alexandra Vasiliu
-I Hope This Helps by Nakia Homer
-Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
In Sifting the Ashes, over a hundred individual and collaborative poems explore what it takes to survive after all is suddenly taken. Combined life experiences of love, loss, and personal tragedy sift what’s salvageable from the aftermath of fire, searching through the layers of ash for lessons about death, cremation, and the various stages of grief.
What might be found in the remains after all is lost?
Titles similar to Sifting the Ashes:
-A Collection of Dreamscapes by Christina Sng
-Leaves of Grass by Walt Wittman
-Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You by Misha Collins
-Healing Is a Gift by Alexandra Vasiliu
-I Hope This Helps by Nakia Homer
-Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
- GenresPoetry
260 pages, Paperback
Published April 20, 2022
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Michael Bailey
128 books69 followersMichael Bailey is a recipient and ten-time nominee of the Bram Stoker Award, a five-time Shirley Jackson Award nominee, and a three-time recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award, along with several independent publishing accolades. He has written, edited, and published many books of various genres. His latest is Righting Writing, a nonfiction narrative used as curriculum for aspiring writers, and Silent Nightmares: Haunting Stories to Be Told on the Longest Night of the Year, an anthology co-edited with Chuck Palahniuk to be published by Simon & Schuster in fall of 2026. He is also the screenwriter for Madness and Writers, a creative documentary series about writers, and a producer for numerous film projects. Find him online at nettirw.com, or on social media @nettirw. He is represented by Lane Heymont of the Tobias Literary Agency.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 24, 2022
Bailey and Simon create fire and smoke, survival tactics, memories, tears and the ghosts that survived in the ashes. I found myself returning to favorites before I continued deeper into the fire, the ashes for the sake of the Fire Ghosts. This is a remarkable collection and both poets show collaborative fireside(s) storytelling, tastes of bitterness, and flames yet to come.
Top Favorites:
Forecast
The Firegod Cometh
Pacific Grassed & Electrified
Dispatch
The Custodian
Yet to Come
Arachnid
Drementia
Somnambulism
Dear Deer
I read this collection in eBook form. And need to get a physical copy. So I can return to these ashes and continue to sift, and burn with delight.
Top Favorites:
Forecast
The Firegod Cometh
Pacific Grassed & Electrified
Dispatch
The Custodian
Yet to Come
Arachnid
Drementia
Somnambulism
Dear Deer
I read this collection in eBook form. And need to get a physical copy. So I can return to these ashes and continue to sift, and burn with delight.
January 8, 2024
Gritty poems
There needs to be a new content warning: “Wildfires.” I never knew how traumatic it would be to read anything about being near or in the zone of a wildfire until I read these poems. I have been lucky; I have never had to evacuate because of a wildfire in my area — YET. But being near the wildfires of Oregon was scary. Seeing the sky an orange sky was surreal. And the health threat of breathing in smoky air is something I will never forget. I can still remember seeing ash falling from the sky! Even so, I still read the poems in this book. Doing so did not mean reliving that trauma, but reading about other experiences people had, just as I did after certain wildfires came and went. These poems include such testaments. I also enjoyed reading the other poems in this book. I liked the poem “Let Me Go, Please” the most. And in the last poem, these are my favorite lines: “As with virus, fire, or hurricane/if you can’t always get what you want/be grateful to get what you need.”
There needs to be a new content warning: “Wildfires.” I never knew how traumatic it would be to read anything about being near or in the zone of a wildfire until I read these poems. I have been lucky; I have never had to evacuate because of a wildfire in my area — YET. But being near the wildfires of Oregon was scary. Seeing the sky an orange sky was surreal. And the health threat of breathing in smoky air is something I will never forget. I can still remember seeing ash falling from the sky! Even so, I still read the poems in this book. Doing so did not mean reliving that trauma, but reading about other experiences people had, just as I did after certain wildfires came and went. These poems include such testaments. I also enjoyed reading the other poems in this book. I liked the poem “Let Me Go, Please” the most. And in the last poem, these are my favorite lines: “As with virus, fire, or hurricane/if you can’t always get what you want/be grateful to get what you need.”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews