Raising the Dead

As in his other books, Rash is very precise in his use of language, with the prosody being informed by Welsh forms. Many of the poems use a style of syllabic verse featuring seven- syllable lines with internal echos, but most readers will not notice the craftsmanship of these poems because they flow so naturally. There is great narrative intensity in these poems with short poems of short lines telling detailed and vivid stories.

In 1987 his fiction won a General Electric Younger Writers Award, and in 1994 he was awarded an NEA Poetry Fellowship. He was awarded the Sherwood Anderson Prize in 1996. His poetry and fiction have appeared in a number of journals, including Poetry, Yale Review, Oxford American, New England Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah and Sewanee Review. He is the author of four previous books: The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth and Casualties, both collections of stories, and Eureka Mill and Among the Believers, both collections of poetry.