McCrae dropped out of high school and got an equivalency diploma. By 19, he was on his own, married, father of a daughter, but without a clear path forward, only a clear ambition to write poetry. I felt he had been beaten down by some great force — some injustice beyond the injustice of being Black in America. But these are just themes; every poet has them, and they say nothing about what might make verse notable, durable. It is McCrae’s own deep knowledge, and use, of the history of poetic form that has marked his work and made it, identifiably, his own.

---

Persons: McCrae, McCrae didn’t, Jorie Graham, “, ” Graham, ‘, ’, identifiably Organizations: Linfield, Iowa, ’, Harvard Law School Locations: America