Megan Merchant reads her poem “Crown Shyness” from Shō No. 3: Revival Issue (Summer/Fall 2023).
This poem is part of a larger epistolary exchange, “A Slow Indwelling”, with Luke Johnson, and will be published this fall with Harbor Editions.
Megan Merchant (she/her) is the owner of the editing, manuscript consultation, and mentoring business Shiversong (www.shiversong.com) and holds an M.F.A. degree in International Creative Writing from UNLV. She is a visual artist and the author of three full-length poetry collections with Glass Lyre Press: Gravel Ghosts (2016), The Dark’s Humming(2015 Lyrebird Award), Grief Flowers (2018), four chapbooks, and a children’s book, These Words I Shaped for You(Penguin Random House). Her book, Before the Fevered Snow, was released in April 2020 with Stillhouse Press (NYT New & Noteworthy). She was awarded the Las Vegas Poets Prize, the 2016-2017 COG Literary Award, judged by Juan Felipe Herrera, the 2018 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, second place in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, the Inaugural Michelle Boisseau Prize, and, most recently, the New American Poetry Prize. She is the Editor of Pirene’s Fountain. You can find her poetry and artwork at meganmerchant.wixsite.com/poet