"Probably the real story of race in the United States (like all real stories) can only be written by a poet. And Shane McCrae has done it. BLOOD is an epic that spans three centuries. BLOOD is so formally innovative that you don't quite understand how it achieves its effects. BLOOD is so utterly clear it makes you cry. BLOOD is almost impossibly empathetic. Moving from sequences based on slave narratives and Federal Writers Project oral histories to monologues by white racists to autobiography and the poet's family history, BLOOD is beautiful and significant, subtle and blunt. It asks to be read and reread. We need this book."—Kathleen Ossip

Shane McCrae grew up in Texas and California. The first in his family to graduate from college, McCrae earned a BA at Linfield College, an MA at the University of Iowa, an MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and a JD at Harvard Law School.

McCrae is the author of several poetry collections, including Mule (2011); Blood (2013); The Animal Too Big to Kill (2015); In the Language of My Captor (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and The Gilded Auction Block (2019). His work has also been featured in The Best American Poetry 2010, edited by Amy Gerstler, and his honors include a Whiting Writers' Award and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.