Fall 2024 | Shane McCrae | Vol. 8, Iss. 2
Welcome to The Fight & The Fiddle, a publication of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Each issue gives you a 360-degree view of a Black poet, including an interview, new poems, a critical essay, and a writing prompt inspired by our featured poet.
McCrae is the author of several poetry collections, including Mule, Blood, Forgiveness Forgiveness (2014); The Animal Too Big to Kill, In the Language of My Captor, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; The Gilded Auction Block, Sometimes I Never Suffered, and Cain Named the Animal. His memoir Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, released in 2023, details his early life, in which he was kidnapped by his maternal grandparents at the age of three, and raised to believe that his father had abandoned him. His poetic work has been featured in numerous journals and anthologies such as The Best American Poetry 2010, American Poetry Review, African American Review, Fence, and AGNI. He has also received numerous awards and honors including the Whiting Award, the Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in 2020. McCrae is currently an assistant professor in the Creative Writing MFA program at Columbia University, and is a Poetry Editor of Image.
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- Interview: Shane McCrae speaks with Furious Flower’s Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Gbenga Adesina about his spiritual connections to poetry, the space that writing takes up, and the time that it encompasses.
- Critical Essay: In his essay “How Generous to Share the Map: Shane McCrae, a Metricist,” A. H. Jerriod Avant investigates the metrics and margins of “McCraen” poetry.
- Poems: Read “I squeezed through” and “Law’s Dream” by Shane McCrae.
- Writing Prompt: Make a Metrical Move!
Read the transcription here
Photo by Joaquin Sosa
Cover Design by Robert Mott
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