Greg McNeilly, the West Michigan entrepreneur and writer behind mcneilly.com, has published his debut poetry collection, Red White and Verse, a work that explores American myths, legends, and iconic historical figures through poetry. The release marks a significant expansion for mcneilly.com, a platform where business thinking and creative writing have long coexisted.
The collection arrives as a natural extension of McNeilly's work, where entrepreneurship and personal reflection share space. Rather than treating business and poetry as separate disciplines, Red White and Verse reflects a perspective shaped by both, drawing on the clarity required in leadership to examine broader questions about national identity and historical memory.
Red White and Verse uses the compression and precision of poetry to examine well-known historical figures from angles that prose often overlooks. For readers familiar with mcneilly.com and its focus on ideas at the intersection of business and human experience, the collection extends that habit of inquiry. As an entrepreneur poet, McNeilly brings the same analytical attention he applies to business into his reading of American history, asking not just what happened, but what those events and figures have come to represent.
“Poetry gave me a way to get closer to these figures and stories than a business essay ever could,” said Greg McNeilly, Founder of mcneilly.com. “The discipline of writing verse forces you to be precise—every word has to carry weight. That turns out to be a lot like running a business.”
McNeilly's West Michigan background grounds much of the sensibility across his work—a region with strong traditions of practical industry and community-oriented values. Those roots inform both the tone of mcneilly.com and the perspective in Red White and Verse. The collection is engaged, direct, and attentive to the human dimensions of the figures it examines.
The parallel between entrepreneurship and creative writing is one mcneilly.com has explored for some time. Both disciplines require tolerance for uncertainty, the ability to revise, and a willingness to commit to a direction even when outcomes are not guaranteed. Red White and Verse represents a point where those two paths converge into a single published work.
mcneilly.com has operated as a space where leadership thinking and personal writing inform each other. The publication of Red White and Verse formalizes something present in that platform's voice from the beginning—that the skills developed through entrepreneurship and literary writing are more closely related than they might appear.
The debut collection is now available through mcneilly.com, adding a creative dimension to a platform that continues to sit at the crossroads of business leadership and reflective writing. For readers who follow the site for its entrepreneurship perspective, the poetry collection offers a new entry point into the ideas that have shaped McNeilly's work across both fields.
