Finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry

“[McCrae’s] language remains as stark as the perdurable, terrible history it contains—a history that is not over yet.”
—Stephanie Burt, New York Times Book Review

Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae’s latest collection, In the Language of My Captor, now available in paper, is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. In it, historical persona poemsand a prose memoir address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, and he interrogates the infrequently examined connections between racism and love.

Shane McCrae is the author of four other books of poetry, including The Animal Too Big to Kill, Mule, Forgiveness Forgiveness, and Blood.

April 2, 2019
108 pp., 9 x 6″
Paperback, $14.95 9780819577122
Cloth, $24.95 9780819577115