Shane McCrae (born September 22, 1975, in Portland, Oregon) is an American poet who is also the poetry editor of the journal Image and an associate professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts.
McCrae was the recipient of a 2011 Whiting Award, and in 2012 his collection Mule was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a PEN Center USA Literary Award. In 2013, McCrae received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He received a Lannan Literary AwardShane McCrae 2017 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, lannan.org. Retrieved 7 October 2019. in 2017, in 2018 his collection In the Language of My Captor won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award,Evone Jeffries, 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Are Announced, Ohio Center for the Book, March 30, 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018. and in 2019 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, gf.org. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, African American Review, Fence, and AGNI.
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 who raised him to believe that his father had abandoned him. His grandfather was a white supremacist who abused him. He moved to California with his grandparents when he was 10 years old, but he grew up there and in Texas. He did not see his father again until he was 16.
He dropped out of high school, had a child at 18, and later earned a GED. He attended Chemeketa Community College but graduated with a B.A. in 2002 from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. He has earned three graduate degrees: an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa in Iowa City (2004), a J.D. from Harvard Law School (2007), and an M.A. from the University of Iowa (2012).
Career McCrae was an assistant professor in the Creative Writing program at Oberlin College from 2015 to 2017Shane McCrae Assistant Professor at Oberlin College — Creative Writing, Oberlin College & Conservatory. Retrieved 3 April 2018. and is an associate professor in the Creative Writing MFA program at Columbia University.
He is the author of the poetry collections Mule (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011), 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), 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), and Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping (Scribner, 2023).
Awards In 2011, McCrae received the Whiting Award, and in 2012 his collection Mule was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a PEN Center USA Literary Award.
The Animal Too Big to Kill won the 2014 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award.Persea Books, perseabooks.com. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
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.
McCrae received a Lannan Literary Award in 2018, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.
Sometimes I Never Suffered was shortlisted for the 2020 T. S. Eliot Prize.The T. S. Eliot Foundation, tseliot.com. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
In 2020, McCrae received a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship.New York Foundation for the Arts, nyfa.org. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
In 2023, McCrae received the Arthur Rense Prize, an award given only every three years for a poet's "exceptional" body of work.
Works In Canaan, Milwaukee: Rescue Press, 2010. , Mule, Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011. , Blood, Noemi Press, 2013. , Nonfiction, Pittsburgh, PA: Black Lawrence Press, 2014. , Forgiveness Forgiveness, Hadley, MA: Factory Hollow Press, 2014. , The Animal Too Big to Kill, New York: Persea Books, 2015. , In the Language of My Captor Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2017. , The Gilded Auction Block, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. , Sometimes I Never Suffered, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. , Cain Named the Animal, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. , Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping, New York: Scribner, 2023. , The Many Hundreds of the Scent: Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023. ,
References
External links McCrae's Whiting Award Profile McCrae's Profile on The Cleveland State University Poetry Center Website McCrae on First Book Interviews Website