• First Manifesto, A. Swallow (Baton Rouge, LA), 1940.
• "The Dialectics of Love", Alan Swallow, editor, Three Young Poets: Thomas McGrath, William Peterson, James Franklin Lewis, Press of James A. Decker (Prairie City, IL), 1942.
• To Walk a Crooked Mile, Swallow Press (New York City), 1947.
• Longshot O'Leary's Garland of Practical Poesie, International Publishers (New York City), 1949.
• Witness to the Times!, privately printed, 1954.
• Figures from a Double World, Alan Swallow (Denver, CO), 1955.
• The gates of ivory, the gates of horn, Mainstream Publishers, 1957 (2nd edition Another Chicago Press, 1987 ISBN 9780961464424)
• Clouds, Melmont Publishers, 1959
• Letter to an Imaginary Friend, Part I, Alan Swallow, 1962
• published with Part II, Swallow Press (Chicago, IL), 1970
• Parts III and IV, Copper Canyon Press, 1985
• compilation of all four parts with selected new material, Copper Canyon Press (Port Townsend, WA), 1997. ISBN 9781556590771
• New and Selected Poems, Alan Swallow, 1964.
• The Movie at the End of the World: Collected Poems, Swallow Press, 1972.
• Poems for Little People, [Gloucester], c. 1973.
• Voyages to the Inland Sea #3, Center for Contemporary Poetry, 1973.
• Voices from beyond the Wall, Territorial Press (Moorhead, MN), 1974.
• A Sound of One Hand: Poems, Minnesota Writers Publishing House (St. Peter, MN), 1975.
• Open Songs: Sixty Short Poems, Uzzano (Mount Carroll, IL), 1977. ISBN 9780930600006
• Letters to Tomasito, graphics by Randall W. Scholes, Holy Cow! Press (St. Paul, MN), 1977. ISBN 9780930100018
• Trinc: Praises II; A Poem, Copper Canyon Press, 1979.
• Waiting for the Angel, Uzzano (Menomonie, WI), 1979. ISBN 9780930600075
• Passages toward the Dark, Copper Canyon Press, 1982. ISBN 9780914742630
• Echoes inside the Labyrinth, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983. ISBN 9780938410133
• Longshot O'Leary Counsels Direct Action: Poems, West End Press, 1983. ISBN 9780931122286
• Selected Poems, 1938-1988, Copper Canyon Press, 1988. ISBN 9781556590122
• This coffin has no handles: a novel, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1988. ISBN 9780938410638
• Death Song, edited by Sam Hamill, Copper Canyon Press, 1991. ISBN 9781556590351

Anthologies

• Ian M. Parsons, editor, Poetry for Pleasure, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1960.
• Donald Hall, editor, New Poets of England and America, Meridian, 1962.
• Walter Lowenfels, editor, Poets of Today: A New American Anthology, International Publishers, 1964.
• Lucien Stryk, editor, Heartland: Poets of the Midwest, Northern Illinois University Press (DeKalb, IL), 1967.
• W. Lowenfels, editor, Where Is Vietnam?, Doubleday, 1967.
• Morris Sweetkind, editor, Getting into Poetry, Rostan Holbrook Press, 1972.
• David Kherdian, editor, Traveling America, Macmillan (New York City), 1977.
• The Norton Introduction to Literature, 2nd edition, Norton (New York City), 1977.
• David Ray, editor, From A to Z: 200 Contemporary Poets, Swallow Press, 1981. ISBN 9780804003704

Best of all, Letter to an Imaginary Friend licks its fingers and burps at the table. Polite it is not--and the better for it when McGrath turns from his populist vitriol to what may be his most abiding talent: that of bestowing praise--grace, even--on the common, the unruly, the inconsolable, those McGrath chose to side and sing with and for whom "the world is too much but not enough with us.

• The Revolutionary Poet in the United States: the Poetry of Thomas McGrath, Stern, Frederick C. (Editor), U of Missouri, Columbia, 1988 ISBN 0-8262-0682-4
• (reprint University of Illinois Press, 1992, ISBN 9780252018527)