Shane McCrae (born September 22, 1975,Portland, Oregon)^[1] is anAmerican poet, and is currently Poetry Editor ofImage.^[2]

McCrae was the recipient of a 2011Whiting Award,^[3] and in 2012 his collectionMule 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 aLannan Literary Award^[7] in 2017, in 2018 his collectionIn the Language of My Captor won anAnisfield-Wolf Book Award,^[8] and in 2019 he was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship.^[9]

His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, includingBest American Poetry,American Poetry Review,African American Review,Fence, andAGNI.^[3]

Born inPortland, 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 toCalifornia 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 aGED certificate and had a child at 18.^[11][10] He attendedChemeketa Community College.^[1] In 2002, McCrae graduated fromLinfield College inMcMinnville, Oregon.^[13] In 2004, he earned aMaster of Fine Arts from theUniversity of Iowa inIowa City.^[14] In 2007, he graduated fromHarvard Law School with aJD.^[14][12] In 2012, he earned aMaster of Arts from the University of Iowa.^[14]

McCrae was an assistant professor in the Creative Writing program atOberlin College 2015–2017^[15] and is an associate professor in the Creative Writing MFA program atColumbia University.^[16]

He is the author of the poetry collectionsMule (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]

In 2011, McCrae received theWhiting Award,^[3] and in 2012 his collectionMule 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 2014Lexi 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 2018Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.^[8]

McCrae received aLannan Literary Award^[7] in 2018, and aGuggenheim Fellowship^[9] in 2019.

Sometimes I Never Suffered was shortlisted for the 2020T. S. Eliot Prize.^[22]

In 2020, McCrae received aNYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship.^[23]

• 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
• The Many Hundreds of the Scent: Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.ISBN 9780374607197,OCLC 1344332594

• McCrae's Whiting Award Profile
• McCrae's Profile on The Cleveland State University Poetry Center Website
• McCrae on First Book Interviews Website

• Living people
• 1975 births
• American male poets
• Poets from Oregon
• Writers from Portland, Oregon
• People from McMinnville, Oregon
• Linfield University alumni
• Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
• University of Iowa alumni
• Harvard Law School alumni
• Oberlin College faculty
• Spalding University faculty
• 21st-century American poets
• 21st-century American male writers
• Columbia University faculty

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata