The Palace of Ashes

Critic Reviews

There are many subjects in this book I have never read about in poems before—young girls, for example, asked by their riding instructor to help her breed a mare. The poet’s job was to guide the stallion’s penis into the “gray suede pucker of her sex.” There are other poems about horses and birds and birding . . . but they all circle back to, include in some way, the weight, the emotional and psychological atmosphere of place . . . so often, in these poems, place is metaphor. And that explains their tremendous resonance, their sadness as well as their joy . . . you will remember these towns because you are from these towns . . . these poems will help you see them . . . or mourn them, as you need. That’s part of poetry’s job. This poet has done her job brilliantly.
— Thomas Lux

Out of palaces of ash, Fairchok discovers substantial fire. Out of coal-veined Pennsylvania, she elicits heat and warmth. Out of transformative witnessing stitched with hunger, she has us experience horses and birds, life and nature, through sheer astonishment . . . Such lusciousness. Such longing. A fire burns deeply in these poems.
— Patrick Lawler

Sherry Fairchok’s steady gaze is faithful to the numinous truth of things, and her voice so restrained that the power of feeling within it strikes deep and lasts. Each poem is a world, a story so in love with the details—the sound of human voices, the taste of food, the look of dusty lilacs—that I am taken in utterly.
— Marie Howe