Shane McCrae

Omnidawn Fall '25 Book Launch | Passage - Your event. Your fans. Your mobile box office. Quiet Lightning is pleased to host a virtual event with Omnidawn Publishing for their seasonal launch of new titles, for which each author will be reading from their work. Hosted by QL director Evan K...

Last year, Omnidawn published a chapbook I wrote, "Two Appearances After the Resurrection," and I'm so grateful! If you want to hear amazing poets, and also me, read from books Omnidawn published at around the same time: today, 1 PM Pacific! I hope to see you there! app.gopassage.com/events/omnid...

Ooh! This is my first time seeing the Faber edition!

YouTube video by Gabriel Gundacker zendaya is meechee

I use this video to teach my students about amphibrachs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx5Y...

Yes on both counts! I very recently, and only a wee bit illegally, had a Veronica Forrest-Thomson T-shirt made, which looks like the shirt in the picture (I'm, uh, not in the picture).

And, breaking into a canter, I set off on the long road south
Which was to take me to so many strange places,
That room in Cambridge, that room in Cambridge, that room in Cambridge,
That room in Cambridge, this room in Cambridge

(But I LOVE to read biographies of poets.)

The poet is necessary for the creation of the poem, and (except, perhaps, with regard to the poem intended only for performance by its author) irrelevant to its functioning.

(Rereading a classic--for me, THE classic, on account of my youth when I first read it.)

"[M]eter is the most fundamental technique of order available to the poet. The other poetic techniques of order—rhyme, line division, stanzaic form, and over-all structure—are all projections and magnifications of the kind of formalizing repetition which meter embodies. They are meter writ large."

Onassis.

PANIC RULES Jessica Laser reviews ’Only Sing,’ a third collection of poet John Berryman’s Dream Songs, edited and collected from the archives by Shane McCrae.

Jessica Laser's review of "Only Sing" is wonderful and I am so grateful for it! kismet-mag.com/reviews/pani...

Today is the publication date for John Berryman’s "Only Sing: 152 Uncollected Dream Songs." A few days ago, I read the book for pleasure for the first time. And though I can’t speak to the quality of my introduction, the poems are wonderful. I think you’ll like them.

Thank God I am neither marketable nor likable.

In the--excruciating!--throes of trying to decide whether to keep using Garamond, or switch to EB Garamond.

Zohran!

The less Google, the better.

Hi! Just in case you already have my Gmail address, which I'm phasing out, and want my new email address, it's the same as my Gmail address but with @proton.me at the end of it instead of @gmail.com. That's all! I hope you're having a good weekend!

“For the Egyptians tell us Hephaestos…” - Image Journal Invention loves desire but desire brings home war.

I have a couple of poems from my new book in the current issue of Image. Thank you to editor @akasomeguy.bsky.social for including these.

On Thursday, October 9th at 7PM I’ll be reading at the Book Culture on W 112th with Phillis Levin and Rosanna Warren in celebration of Rosanna’s brilliant new book, Hindsight. I hope hope hope to see you there! Info and registration here: www.bookculture.com/event/112th-...

American Poetry Review - John Berryman - "Long Distance" Published in American Poetry Review - Volume 54  |  No. 05

My gosh do I love the ending of this Dream Song from "Only Sing" (obliquely, one of Berryman's many Elegies for Delmore Schwartz). Thank you @elizabethscanlon.bsky.social and everybody at @ampoetryreview.bsky.social for publishing it. aprweb.org/poems/long-d...

Donate to Empower Nicholas: Education, Growth, & Career Fund, organized by Nicholas McCrae Hi, I’m Nicholas I’m 21 years old and have been trying to figur… Nicholas McCrae needs your support for Empower Nicholas: Education, Growth, & Career Fund

Howdy, y'all! So, I mentioned a few weeks ago that my son makes rad videos about weather. Well, he has now created a fundraiser to help him fund that work, as well as his life goals in general. Thanks for taking a look. www.gofundme.com/f/empower-ni...

It's nice to be reminded that the iambic pentameter line is one of the most beautiful things to have ever existed.

HUNDREDS of Fire Tornadoes: The Lightning-Sparked San Luis Obispo & Brea Oil Fires in California YouTube video by Nick Block

New, corrected version of the video: www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

YouTube video by Nick Block The California Oil Fire That Produced HUNDREDS of Fire Tornadoes

My son makes hella interesting videos about extreme weather events. Here's one about an outbreak of fire tornadoes, which I didn't even know were a thing before he told me: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWyZ...

I try to write poems. I’m working on it. And I’m very grateful to everybody at @newversereview.bsky.social, especially Steve Knepper and Mary Grace Mangano, for publishing, alongside many rad poems, this poem. I tried. I worked on it. And I hope you like it. www.newversereview.com/2-3-shane-mc...

Elizabethan Sonnet on He Recalls His Time as a Student Musician as He Talks About Bombing Iran A poem by Shane McCrae

A few months ago, I thought I was done writing these. But maybe not quite yet? I’m so grateful to @bdralyuk.bsky.social and everybody at @nimrodjournal.bsky.social for publishing this sonnet. I hope you like it. nimrodjournal.substack.com/p/elizabetha...

YouTube video by New York Times Podcasts A.O. Scott on the Joy of Close Reading Poetry

NYT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2JJ...
FT: www.ft.com/content/c3a6...

In the past few days, some extraordinary and heartening things have happened, and I’m feeling less down about my poems. The New York Times Book Review podcast recommended “New and Collected Hell,” and the Financial Times included it on their list of Best Summer Books of 2025! I am so, so grateful.

It's a good suggestion! But there's nothing I can do. My edition was guided by, in part, a remark Berryman made about it being up to readers to slot in with his complete edition any Dream Songs published after it. So "Only Sing" looks like previous editions, and, like them, includes no notes.

I'm afraid not. As far as I know, no such edition exists. Hopefully, if a complete, scholarly edition of Dream Songs is ever published, a complete, scholarly edition would include annotations.