People get anxious about dividing sorts of poetry, say Confessionalism from political poetry. But Confessionalism is very much an expression of racial privilege and of class privilege. I don't think it's always a blind expression of these privileges but it does have its genesis in them, in the politics of them.
Shane McCraeI think about the body kind of all the time, being as how I'm really uncomfortable in mine.
Shane McCraeI was just thinking about how my grandparents, who raised me, would be considered "white trash," whatever that means - mostly for being racists, I'd say. And how, as a child, I wanted to be like them, and identified with them culturally.
Shane McCraeI don't know that I find either aspect of Jesus more interesting than the other, although maybe I think about the God one more.
Shane McCraeI hope I can write toward my interests. But poets should be afraid of too fluidly responding to what they're interested in.
Shane McCraeThat's a fairly Wordsworthian way to look at things! But yeah, actually - part of the poet's work, I think, is to maintain or reintroduce the imaginative capacity of their earlier self while nonetheless maturing. And I do think the more successful the poet is at this particular thing, the greater their achievement as a poet.
Shane McCrae