August 1, 2020

Kathleen McClung

« Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner »

Cover of A Juror Must Fold in on Herself, colorful painting of a woman's face in profileCourtrooms hum with drama. But aside from “Twelve Angry Men” and occasional feminist re-imaginings with all-women casts, jurors are seldom the central characters in literature or film. A Juror Must Fold in on Herself tips the scale. Kathleen McClung’s incisive poems focus on a juror as she performs the unglamorous civic duty of listening, concentrating, and discerning in a lengthy trial. Through a variety of poetic forms—sonnets, villanelles, sestinas and others—McClung illuminates the interior world of a juror abiding by the rules of an imperfect legal system and balancing head and heart within the tight confines of a solemn hall of justice. Listen closely to McClung’s poems and you, too, will hear a hum.

 

Praise for A Juror Must Fold in on Herself

This book is a celebration of form: villanelle, ghazal, rondeau, pantoum, cento, sonnet, and two impressive linked series (“Summons” and “The Juror’s Lament”). The forms are masterfully executed, but I really must bow before McClung’s mastery of the sestina, difficult to pull off anytime, much less with the grace managed in poems like “The Sequestered Juror Writes a Sestina.” In every case, form works with rather than against expression of a vital, moving, and essential humanity. The book marshals humor and suspense to forge a compelling narrative that builds up to and back down from a big reveal in “The Forewoman Speaks,” the sequencing so well done that at times I felt as if I were reading a short story or novella. All along the way, I found myself marking memorable lines, images, and diction. A great read!
—Rebecca Foust, author of Paradise Drive and ONLY, forthcoming from Four Way Books

Prepare to be dazzled by Kathleen McClung’s bravura performance in A Juror Must Fold in on Herself. In this thoughtful, elegant, wry examination of our courts, McClung deploys a menagerie of forms: the villanelle, the pantoum, the rondeau, the cento, and the ghazal. This combination of restraints eerily captures the ruminations of a juror trapped in her thoughts and constrained by the structure of the criminal justice system. Later, in a crown of sonnets, she addresses a grandmother and considers this relative’s role at her job and in society at large. McClung, a master of formal verse, burrows into language and experience. From each new perspective, she walks us into the back halls of our jury system. Join her.
—George Higgins, author of There, There

What I love most about Kathleen McClung’s poetry is how it reveres daily life. By applying her deft hand with form to the everyday, she makes us all sonnet-worthy; our routine lives deserving of a villanelle’s refrain, a sestina’s complexity. In A Juror Must Fold in on Herself, she once again makes us pause where we might otherwise just glance, and see something worthy and profound —here the civic chore of jury duty. Each poem builds on the last, creating a collection at once deeply personal and resonant. The poems progress from the juror’s isolation (literal and emotional) while sequestered, to the introspection that comes with deliberation; to the terrible weight of judgment—and its impact on the one who judges as well as the judged. In her gorgeous crown, “Summons,” McClung’s juror contemplates the guilty verdict they have handed down and wonders, “Yes, confess: I’m flattered lawyers chose/this thinker striving (mostly) to be fair./ And yet my heart, my heart. Beyond repair?” The collection, and this final question, remind us that to be wise in judging others (as this juror promises to be) we must inevitably turn inward, and do not–perhaps should not–come away unscathed.
—Laura Schulkind, attorney by day, author of Lost in Tall Grass and The Long Arc of Grief

Anyone who’s ever served on a jury will recognize the experience deftly depicted in A Juror Must Fold in on Herself. Those who haven’t served will be intrigued by the ritual of the service as wisely woven into these poems by McClung’s use of repetitive forms: villanelles, ghazals, and pantoums, among others. There is wisdom and pathos here; solemnity and humor. I plan to make a gift of this fine collection to more than a few legal professionals.
—Lynne Thompson, author of Fretwork

In Kathleen McClung’s new prize-winning chapbook, all the elements of form and function, freedom and sentences come together in a distillation of the poetic elements—a bliss of plainspeak that listens and sees. And there’s humor, the banality of common ironies and evils too small to fail us, or inspire us to move forward.
—John Hawkins, in OpEdNews

Sample Poems

• “The Public Defender First Approaches the Box” in Rattle (Online)
• “The Sequestered Juror Writes a Rondeau” in Rattle (Online)

Other Poems by Kathleen McClung

Four Poems in Peacock Journal
Five Poems in PoetryMagazine.com

About the Author

Photo of Kathleen McClung by Hilary BuffinKathleen McClung is the author of Temporary Kin, The Typists Play Monopoly, and Almost the Rowboat. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she is the winner of the Rita Dove, Morton Marr, Shirley McClure, and Maria W. Faust national poetry prizes. Her work appears widely in journals and anthologies, including Fire & Rain: Ecopoetry of California, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace, Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Southwest Review, and others. Kathleen lives in San Francisco and teaches at The Writing Salon and Skyline College, where she served for ten years as director of the annual Women on Writing conference. She is associate director and sonnet judge for the Soul-Making Keats literary competition. In 2018-19 she was a writer-in-residence at Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. (web)

Details

Cover art by Nancy Buffum

ISBN: 978-1-931307-45-1
Cover price: $6.00
Chapbook: 36 pages
Size: 6″ x 9″

September 29, 2020

Kathleen McClung

THE SEQUESTERED JUROR WRITES A RONDEAU

You find yourself more grateful for the view
than for the king size mattress because you
don’t sleep with any regularity.
Instead you rise and pull the drapes at three
or four a.m. Bright parking lot is nothing new,

and yet configurations change. Those two
Toyotas just arrived. That powder blue
Mercedes left. Praise flux, mobility.
You find your cell

expands beyond four walls by watching who
emerges from each open door and who
departs. One day you will conclude: Guilty
or Not. (Deadlock’s a possibility.)
One day you’ll leave. For now, here’s what you do.
You fill your cell.

from A Juror Must Fold in on Herself
2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Kathleen McClung: “I have taught a variety of literature and writing classes at Skyline College as an adjunct professor for over twenty years. While this seniority gives me a wee bit of job security, I still struggle with all kinds of uncertainties, which may partly account for why I write mostly formal poetry. There is a tangible comfort in the challenge of crafting a sestina, pantoum, ghazal, or sonnet. I may not have adequate health insurance, but my iambs feel good.” (web)

 

Kathleen McClung is the guest on Rattlecast #60! Click here to watch …

Rattle Logo

September 3, 2020

Kathleen McClung

THE PUBLIC DEFENDER FIRST APPROACHES THE BOX

My client’s just like you, except he’s not
got gum or ibuprofen in a purse.
His silence is his right. I’ll talk a lot

about the night in question, which was caught
on video. Your call: a blessing or a curse.
My client’s just like you, except he’s not

inclined to ruminate, to dwell on thoughts
of Trump and Pence; he’s clear which one is worse.
His silence is his right. I’ll talk a lot

about police departments, how they’re fraught
with graft, with hotheads prone to pull triggers.
My client’s just like you, except he’s not

received a fair shake from these guys. You ought
to walk inside his shoes, then write some verse.
His silence is his choice. I’ll talk a lot.

Some sentences may leave you cold—some, hot.
My job: to sow a field of doubts through words.
My client’s just like you. Except he’s not.
He’s silent. So are you. But me, I talk a lot.

from A Juror Must Fold in on Herself
2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Kathleen McClung: “I have taught a variety of literature and writing classes at Skyline College as an adjunct professor for over twenty years. While this seniority gives me a wee bit of job security, I still struggle with all kinds of uncertainties, which may partly account for why I write mostly formal poetry. There is a tangible comfort in the challenge of crafting a sestina, pantoum, ghazal, or sonnet. I may not have adequate health insurance, but my iambs feel good.” (web)

Rattle Logo

November 17, 2020

Kathleen McClung

BEHIND THE WHEEL

Our monthly ritual: he’d ask about my cat,
uncork a bottle, pour us each some wine,
merlot. I’d curse the traffic on the drive—
I-80 East. My father wasn’t bored.
He’d nod, say: Never tailgate. Stay safe.
Rotate your tires and change your oil. He’d ask

about my 401, my landlord, ask
what did the vet advise about old cats’
hairballs? He’d show me articles he’d saved,
websites and blogs he liked. He poured more wine
and reminisced: two terms on the school board,
his office, business trips. Sometimes we’d drive

to Jackson, play poker machines, then drive
back from the hills, still talking poker as
the sun sank, blue lights bloomed on his dashboard,
and twilight blurred the road. He swerved for cats
and, once, some wild turkeys, their feathers wine-
colored, their strutting slow. He kept them safe.

A cop arrested him one night: unsafe,
erratic weaving in a lane while driv-
ing home from chess at Duffy’s bar, more wine
than usual, more checkmates too. I never asked
how many games he lost—too delicate
a point to probe. My father liked the board

at Duffy’s in the back below the old dartboard
that no one used. A quiet tavern, safe—
no brawls, just chess and fondness for a cat
named Stub who slept between the kegs. The drive
from Duffy’s—eight quick blocks. He didn’t ask
to call a cab. He dozed in jail and paid the fines,

apologized in court. The judge liked wine
and chess as well perhaps: she wasn’t bored
or cruel, just firm, assigning Dad the task
of office help, SPCA. They saved
a few, he told me, their spring Kitten Drive
a big success. He typed cage cards for cats

and dogs newly arrived. His fingers swift
on sleek keyboard, he saved to the hard drive:
Old cats are like fine wines. Ask any volunteer.

from A Juror Must Fold in on Herself
2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

__________

Kathleen McClung: “My father taught me how to play chess when I was about nine, which may partly account for why I love the challenge of writing sestinas. Such a pleasure moving pieces and words strategically around a board or a page. My dad, who died in 2009, always supported my writing, my efforts at artful truth-telling on a variety of subjects, including our family. I miss him and wish he were here now to celebrate my winning the Rattle Chapbook Prize. I’m grateful, though, he missed both Trump and Covid.” (web)

Rattle Logo

April 15, 2020

For the 2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize, we received 1,885 entries, and far more wonderful manuscripts than we have space to publish. We’re excited to announced three winners this year. Each poet will receive $5,000, and each of their chapbooks will be distributed to all 8,000 of our subscribers, beginning with the Fall 2020 issue of Rattle. Per the guidelines, at least one of the winners had to be a poet who had never published a full-length book.

__________

~ Fall 2020 ~

Kathleen McClung

A Juror Must Fold in on Herself
Kathleen McClung
San Francisco, California

Kathleen McClung is the author of Temporary Kin (2020), The Typists Play Monopoly (2018), and Almost the Rowboat (2013). A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she is the winner of the Rita Dove, Morton Marr, Shirley McClure, and Maria W. Faust national poetry prizes. McClung serves as sponsor-judge of the sonnet category of the Soul-Making Keats literary competition and as a reviewer for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, sponsored by the Stanford University Libraries. She teaches writing and literature classes at Skyline College and The Writing Salon. In 2018-19 she was a writer-in-residence at Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. (web)

__________

~ Winter 2020 ~

Tom C. Hunley

Adjusting to the Lights
Tom C. Hunley
Bowling Green, Kentucky

In a 30+ year publishing career, Tom C. Hunley has placed poems in journals beginning with every letter of the alphabet except for Y. The most recent of his six full-length collections is Here Lies (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2018). Forthcoming from C&R Press in March 2021 is What Feels Like Love: New and Selected Poems. He has also written two textbooks and co-edited a third. He is a professor in the MFA/BA Creative Writing programs at Western Kentucky University, where he has worked since 2003.

__________

~ Spring 2021 ~

Jesse Bertron

A Plumber’s Guide to Light
Jesse Bertron
Austin, Texas

Jesse Bertron is a plumber’s apprentice living in Austin, Texas. He has an MFA in Poetry from Vanderbilt University. He is co-director of Poetry at Round Top, an annual festival in rural Texas.

October 9, 2019

Sunday, September 19th

When we moved our reading series online, we promised we would still have local events from time to time, and our first poetry day since the start of the pandemic is the next installment. We’ll feature a reading in Wrightwood by two of our favorite poets, and each of them will be holding a writing workshop beforehand.

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.| Writing Workshops with Kathleen McClung & Michael Meyerhofer

1 p.m. – 2 p.m. | Lunch Break
No food is provided; bring your own lunch or walk to one of the local restaurants!

2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | Poetry Reading & Open Mic
Featuring Kathleen McClung & Michael Meyerhofer, open mic sign-up at the door. (free & open to the public)

Note: Workshops will be held at the Wrightwood Arts Center and the Wrightwood Community Building, and the reading will be at the Wrightwood Community Building. The arts center is on a second floor, and there is no elevator. Please let us know if you have special needs when you register, and we will adjust the workshops accordingly. We will also be following county health guidelines regarding Covid-19, which means masks and social distancing may be required. An email with more information will be sent a few days before the event.

Wrightwood Arts Center
6020 Park Drive #5
Wrightwood, CA (map)

Wrightwood Community Building
1275 Hwy 2
Wrightwood, CA (map)

Winner of the 2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize for A Juror Must Fold in on HerselfKathleen McClung is also the author of Temporary KinThe Typists Play Monopoly, and Almost the Rowboat. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she is the winner of the Rita Dove, Morton Marr, Shirley McClure, and Maria W. Faust national poetry prizes. Her work appears widely in journals and anthologies, including Fire & Rain: Ecopoetry of CaliforniaRaising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the WorkspaceAtlanta ReviewConnecticut River ReviewSouthwest Review, and others. Kathleen lives in San Francisco and teaches at The Writing Salon and Skyline College, where she served for ten years as director of the annual Women on Writing conference. She is associate director and sonnet judge for the Soul-Making Keats literary competition. In 2018-19 she was a writer-in-residence at Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. For more information, (visit her website).

Workshop: “Looking Around, Looking Within: Witness as Meditation in Poetry”

Poets have always closely observed both our outer and inner worlds. As we emerge this year from long lockdowns, we may now see with an even more penetrating vision. In this small, intimate workshop we’ll read, discuss and write short narrative poems that balance mystery and clarity, the startling and the soothing. We’ll focus on artfully combining imagery, language and musing to generate free and formal verse. New and seasoned poets welcome!

__________

Michael Meyerhofer is a poet and fantasy author who believes those two genres genuinely can get along. His fifth poetry book, Ragged Eden, was published by Glass Lyre Press. His fourth, What To Do If You’re Buried Alive, was published by Split Lip Press. In addition to his poetry books, he has published two fantasy trilogies. His debut fantasy novel, Wytchfire (Book I in the Dragonkin Trilogy), was published by Red Adept Publishing, and went on to win the Whirling Prize and a Readers Choice nomination from Big Al’s Books and Pals. Michael has won the Marjorie J. Wilson Best Poem Contest, the Laureate Prize for Poetry, the James Wright Poetry Award, and the Annie Finch Prize for Poetry. He received his BA from the University of Iowa and his MFA from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. An avid weightlifter, medieval weapons collector, and unabashed history nerd, he currently lives, teaches, and inhabits various coffee shops around Fresno, CA. For more information, (visit his website).

Workshop: “Pulling Up the Floorboards: Two Radical Approaches to Revising Poems”

Every cathedral, every temple, every watchtower begins by placing the first brick. But what happens if you’re halfway through construction and realize your project is coming out a bit crooked? Do you tear it all down and start over? Luckily, in writing, even the most radical reconstruction can be done a lot more easily than you think (and with significantly less cuts and bruises). In this class, poet and editor Michael Meyerhofer discusses two radical revision techniques that can be used either to repair a poem that isn’t quite working, or else completely revamp it into an entirely new piece. These techniques can also be helpful for pieces you enjoy because they’ll help you notice and become more mindful of your own aesthetic (or even help you establish an aesthetic, if you haven’t yet).

Register for Either Morning Workshop through the Wrightwood Arts Center:

(click here to register)