The Poetry Society is delighted to present the launch readings for the Spring 2026 issue of The Poetry Review, edited by Wayne Holloway-Smith, with guest readers Will Harris, Ruby Robinson and Mark Waldron, and an exclusive recording from Shane McCrae.

Shane McCrae, Will Harris, Ruby Robinson and Mark Waldron.

READERS

Shane McCrae was the recipient of a 2011 Whiting Award and in 2012 his collection Mule was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a PEN Center USA Literary Award. In 2013, McCrae received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He received a Lannan Literary Award in 2017 and in 2018 his collection In the Language of My Captor won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. In 2019 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, African American Review and The Poetry Review. His most recent book of poems is New and Collected Hell (FSG, 2025). 

Will Harris is a London-based poet of Chinese Indonesian and British heritage. His debut poetry book Rendang was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His most recent book of poems, Brother Poem (2022), was published by Granta in the UK and by Wesleyan in the US.

Ruby Robinson was born in Manchester, England. She studied English literature at the University of East Anglia and is a graduate of the Sheffield Hallam University Writing MA. Her debut collection, Every Little Sound was published by Pavilion Poetry.

Mark Waldron was born in 1960 in New York and grew up in London where he still lives. He was named a Next Generation Poet by the Poetry Book Society in 2014 and has published five collections, the most recent, A Straight Up Giant, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2023.

Please note that The Poetry Review is intended for an adult audience and the poems read may contain challenging language and/or imagery that some readers might find distressing.