American poet (born 1975)
Shane McCrae
Shane McCrae (born September 22, 1975,
Portland, Oregon )
[1] is an
American poet , and is currently Poetry Editor of
Image .
[2]
McCrae was the recipient of a 2011
Whiting Award ,
[3] and in 2012 his collection Mule was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award
[4] and a PEN Center USA Literary Award.
[5] In 2013, McCrae received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
[6] He received a
Lannan Literary Award
[7] in 2017, in 2018 his collection In the Language of My Captor won an
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award ,
[8] and in 2019 he was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship .
[9]
His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including
Best American Poetry ,
American Poetry Review ,
African American Review ,
Fence , and
AGNI .
[3]
Early life and education
Born in
Portland, Oregon to a white mother and black father, he was kidnapped by his maternal grandparents when he was three years old and raised him to believe that his father had abandoned him.
[10] His grandfather was a white supremacist who abused him.
[10] They moved to
California when he was 10 years old,
[1]
[11] and he grew up in Texas and California.
[12] He did not see his father again until he was 16.
[10]
He dropped out of high school and later earned a
GED certificate and had a child at 18.
[11]
[10] He attended
Chemeketa Community College .
[1] In 2002, McCrae graduated from
Linfield College in
McMinnville, Oregon .
[13] In 2004, he earned a
Master of Fine Arts from the
University of Iowa in
Iowa City .
[14] In 2007, he graduated from
Harvard Law School with a
JD .
[14]
[12] In 2012, he earned a
Master of Arts from the University of Iowa.
[14]
Career
McCrae was an assistant professor in the Creative Writing program at
Oberlin College 2015–2017
[15] and is an assistant professor in the Creative Writing MFA program at
Columbia University .
[16]
He is the author of the poetry collections Mule (
Cleveland State University Poetry Center , 2011),
[17] Blood (Noemi Press, 2013), Forgiveness Forgiveness (Factory Hollow Press, 2014), The Animal Too Big to Kill (Persea Books, 2015), In the Language of My Captor (
Wesleyan University Press , 2017),
[18] The Gilded Auction Block (
Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2019), Sometimes I Never Suffered (
Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2020) Cain Named the Animal (
Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2022),
[19] and Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping (
Scribner , 2023).
[20]
Awards
In 2011, McCrae received the
Whiting Award ,
[3] and in 2012 his collection Mule was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award
[4] and a PEN Center USA Literary Award.
[5]
The Animal Too Big to Kill won the 2014
Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award .
[21]
In the Language of My Captor was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award and a winner of the 2018
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards .
[8]
McCrae received a
Lannan Literary Award
[7] in 2018, and a
Guggenheim Fellowship
[9] in 2019.
Sometimes I Never Suffered was shortlisted for the 2020
T. S. Eliot Prize .
[22]
In 2020, McCrae received a
NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship .
[23]
Works
In Canaan , Milwaukee: Rescue Press, 2010.
ISBN
9780984488919 ,
OCLC
707718211
Mule, Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011.
ISBN
9781880834930 ,
OCLC
732166609
Blood, Noemi Press, 2013.
ISBN
9781934819302 ,
OCLC
931029174
Nonfiction , Pittsburgh, PA: Black Lawrence Press, 2014.
ISBN
9781937854980 ,
OCLC
833301672
Forgiveness Forgiveness, Hadley, MA: Factory Hollow Press, 2014.
ISBN
9780983520313 ,
OCLC
890624391
The Animal Too Big to Kill, New York: Persea Books, 2015.
ISBN
9780892554645 ,
OCLC
913514526
In the Language of My Captor Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2017.
ISBN
9780819577115 ,
OCLC
1018464460
The Gilded Auction Block , New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2019.
ISBN
9780374162252 ,
OCLC
1035365132
Sometimes I Never Suffered , New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
ISBN
9780374240813 ,
OCLC
1182576051
Cain Named the Animal , New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.
ISBN
9780374602857 ,
OCLC
1246143402
Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping , New York: Scribner, 2023.
ISBN
9781668021743 ,
OCLC
1390879054
References
^
a
b
c Weisblum, Vida (12 September 2014).
"Shane McCrae Debuts Vulnerable Poetry Collection" . Retrieved 10 July 2016 .
^
"Image Journal Staff" . imagejournal.org. Retrieved 2020-12-27 .
^
a
b
c
"This Year's Award Winners | Whiting Writers' Awards | Programs | Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation" . Whitingfoundation.org. Archived from
the original on 2014-02-20. Retrieved 2013-08-10 .
^
a
b
"Claremont Graduate University News and Events Index" . Cgu.edu. Retrieved 2013-08-10 .
^
a
b
"Announcing the 2012 Literary Award Winners" . Archived from
the original on August 18, 2012. Retrieved August 28, 2012 .
^
"NEA: FY 2013 GRANT AWARDS: Literature Fellowships: Creative Writing (Poetry)" . Nea.gov. Archived from
the original on 2013-09-02. Retrieved 2013-08-10 .
^
a
b
Shane McCrae 2017 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry , lannan.org. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
^
a
b Evone Jeffries,
2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Are Announced , Ohio Center for the Book, March 30, 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
^
a
b
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation , gf.org. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
^
a
b
c
d Gibson, Lydialyle (2018-10-16).
"Coming Apart Together" . Harvard Magazine . Retrieved 2021-01-31 .
^
a
b
"User account – Graduate College of The University of Iowa" . Grad.uiowa.edu . Retrieved 9 July 2018 .
^
a
b
"Shane McCrae" . Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 10 July 2016 .
^
"Linfield grad lands one of the country's top writing awards" . Linfield.edu . Retrieved 9 July 2018 .
^
a
b
c
"Shane McCrae – Arts and Sciences – Oberlin College" . oberlin.edu. Retrieved 10 July 2016 .
^
Shane McCrae Assistant Professor at Oberlin College — Creative Writing , Oberlin College & Conservatory. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
^
"Full-time faculty; Columbia University" . arts.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-28 .
^
"Poetry Center || Cleveland State University" . Csuohio.edu. Archived from
the original on 2013-08-03. Retrieved 2013-08-10 .
^
"In the Language of My Captor" .
^
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374602857/cainnamedtheanimal
^ McCrae, Shane (August 2023).
Pulling the Chariot of the Sun . Simon and Schuster.
ISBN
978-1-6680-2174-3 .
^
Persea Books , perseabooks.com. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
^
The T. S. Eliot Foundation , tseliot.com. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
^
New York Foundation for the Arts , nyfa.org. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
External links