Clint McCown has published four novels and five previous volumes of poems. The only two-time recipient of the American Fiction Prize, he has also received the Midwest Book Award, the Sister Mariella Gable Prize, the Society of Midland Authors Award, the Germaine Bree Book Award, an NEA grant, an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers designation, and a Distinction in Literature citation from the Wisconsin Library Association. In journalism, he received an Associated Press Award for Documentary Excellence for his investigations of organized crime and political corruption. He has worked as a screenwriter for Warner Bros. and as a Creative Consultant for HBO television. He is a former principal actor with the National Shakespeare Company, and several of his plays have been produced. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared widely. He has edited a number of literary magazines, including the Indiana Review and the Beloit Fiction Journal, which he founded in 1984. He currently directs the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Other poems by Clint McCown in Verse Daily:
April 12, 2019:   "Crow Song" "The mockingbird..."
April 9, 2017:   "Sarah, Unbroken" "My wife—Dawn—..."

Books by Clint McCown:

Other poems on the web by Clint McCown:
"A Note to My Daughters, Far Away"
"Total Balance Farm"
Four poems

About The Dictionary of Unspellable Noises:

"Clint McCown is a casually cosmic poet... Nothing in the world is too large or too small for these disturbing epiphanies. Elemental forces are at work here. In the end, the fruits of this experience turn out to be persimmons from McCown's native Tennessee: irresistible to the taste, but capable of puckering our blander assumptions."
—Philip Appleman

"Clint McCown's new book of poetry delves into the unruly world of nature, not as a guide or simply as scenery, but with the steady gaze of the late John Haines. Here nature, family, and selfhood are not just talked about but explored and questioned."
—Matthew Dickman

"Clint McCown keeps a wry eye on the universe and thereby keeps his sanity and ours. He is asking all or most of the big questions, which are still the right questions."
—Roger Mitchell

"In this marvelous collection of poems by one of our very best storytellers, time slows like the light does at the end of the day. Nature drives a hard bargain. We milk a dead cow to save her newborn calf. No matter how deep the fence posts were set, the soil loosens. 'Experience / speaks a language all its own.' Our mortality is everywhere. In contemplation, 'we are the universe / asking itself a question.' And it's a bitter truth, Clint McCown's wisdom, his sweet wisdom. "
—Ralph Angel

"These poems perceptively consider our mysteries and our limitations. 'Thinking is the only voice I own,' McCown writes, but he also sings with a rough and seasoned music."
—Mark Cox