iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

A new issue of Literary Matters! And I am so grateful that a few of my poems are in it alongside many wonderful things! And here's one of those poems. It's in iambic hexameter and terza rima and I hope you like it and the others: www.literarymatters.org/19-1-kushim-...

literarymatters.org

Kushim Perhaps the First Recorded Human Name - Shane McCrae - Literary Matters

from Kushim ix. Kushim Perhaps the First Recorded Human Name Experts agreed the word the word was Kushim meant One thing or something else.....it was some thought the name Of who had written down the ...

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I'm gonna call my Elder Scrolls-themed band The Deviated Septims.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I feel honored and grateful beyond full expression, that “New and Collected Hell,” alongside “I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always,” by Douglas Kearney, and “Reprise,” by Golden, is a finalist for the 2026 Legacy Award from the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation. www.hurstonwright.org

hurstonwright.org

2026 Zora Awards | Hurston Wright Foundation

Celebrate Black literary excellence at the 2026 Zora Awards by the Hurston Wright Foundation. Support, donate, and uplift Black writers.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Villanelles are hard to write! But I tried to write one, and @newversereview.bsky.social was kind enough to publish it in the Summer 2026 issue. Thank you thank you to everyone there.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Today, the impossible feeling that I might start writing essays--about poetry!--for real.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Finally I OMGosh have the issue of Oxford Poetry edited by Hall and Hill, and with Hill's poems, written when he was a baby, in it! And I'm sharing the wealth, y'all, as you will find every Hill poem from the issue here! I have been searching for this thing for YEARS!

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Ya boy has an essay on [...] and [...] in the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to [...]! Whaaaaaat?! Quite stoked, y’all, quite stoked. Edit: Not a Cambridge Companion to me!

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Tomorrow at 7 at Dear Friend Books in Brooklyn I will be reading poems with the brilliant Anna Lena Phillips Bell. Oh I do hope you can come! 343A Tompkins Ave, Brooklyn, NY.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

When I learn that a writer about whose work I had been curious has used AI to help her write her latest, forthcoming novel, that invalidates her previous novels for me, too, and she becomes a writer I will never read. Which is fine! There are so many writers! But I'm bummed about it anyway.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

RIP J.H. Prynne, who meant a world to the art and to me.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

I've been working on a group of poems about someone who is the last non-plant living being on Earth and I am so grateful to Wayne Holloway-Smith and everybody at The Poetry Review for publishing some poems from the group and I really hope you like this one. poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/from-l...

poems.poetrysociety.org.uk

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Reposted by Shane McCrae

Farrar, Straus and Giroux @fsgbooks.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Shane McCrae takes up the mantle of Dante and turns on its head in NEW AND COLLECTED HELL, his contemporary vision of Hell. Now in paperback. bit.ly/4qUQxJI

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

I wrote a sonnet about his hands. And I’m grateful to Ken Gordon at The Sonneteer for publishing it. And I hope you like it, I really do. And I’m sorry for making you think about his hands. thesonneteer.substack.com/p/jones-very...

thesonneteer.substack.com

Jones Very Sonnet on the Mirror Stage

A Poem by Shane McCrae

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

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...

app.gopassage.com

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...

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

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

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

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

youtube.com

zendaya is meechee

YouTube video by Gabriel Gundacker

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

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).

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

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

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

(But I LOVE to read biographies of poets.)

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

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.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

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

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

"[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."

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

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.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Thank God I am neither marketable nor likable.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

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

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

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!

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

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-...

bookculture.com

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

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...

aprweb.org

American Poetry Review - John Berryman - "Long Distance"

Published in American Poetry Review - Volume 54 | No. 05

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

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...

gofundme.com

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

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

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

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

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...

youtube.com

The California Oil Fire That Produced HUNDREDS of Fire Tornadoes

YouTube video by Nick Block

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

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...

newversereview.com

Poem by Shane McCrae

Shane McCrae, "James the Brother of Jesus Confronts His Heavenly Double at the Gates"

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

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...

nimrodjournal.substack.com

Elizabethan Sonnet on He Recalls His Time as a Student Musician as He Talks About Bombing Iran

A poem by Shane McCrae

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

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.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

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.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

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.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

A thing arrived in the mail today.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

I guess I miss England pretty hard--I saw a Cadbury Twirl in a bodega this morning and almost started weeping.

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

This morning, for the first time in a long time--a decade?--I submitted to a journal that only accepts physical submissions (which is also a journal on my list of journals to which I'm afraid to submit), and wow it felt good and weird and good. The tactile! Communication via the mails!

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

The book comes out in December, but here, now, via the New Yorker, is “Henry’s Ode,” from “Only Sing: 152 Uncollected Dream Songs,” by John Berryman (edited by me). I am so grateful to everyone involved, especially Kevin Young and Hannah Aizenman. Woo, y’all! Woo! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

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Shane McCrae @akasomeguy.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

The eye deliberate May qualify the joy And that which we create We also may destroy.

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