Kathleen McClung “Beloved” Sonnet Prize Category
First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $50
Third Prize: $25
Category Details
One Shakespearean, Petrarchan, or nontraditional sonnet per entry. Am Looking for contemporary, beautifully crafted sonnet on the theme of the beloved. I welcome celebrations, meditations, and passions of all varieties. As Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland write, a sonnet “is a form of true power, malleable, nomadic, humane. It speaks to something that is deep within us. It turns us both inward and outward. It is both timely and timeless.”
About Judge/Sponsor
Kathleen McClung (San Francisco, CA), associate director of the Soul-Making Keats literary competition, is the author of three poetry collections: Temporary Kin (2020), The Typists Play Monopoly (2018) and Almost the Rowboat (2013). Her newest collection, A Juror Must Fold in on Herself, winner of the 2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize, is now available. Her work appears widely in journals and anthologies including Southwest Review, Naugatuck River Review, Mezzo Cammin, The MacGuffin, Ekphrasis, Atlanta Review, Spillway, cahoodaloodaling, California Quarterly, Forgotten Women, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California, and elsewhere. Winner of the Rita Dove, Morton Marr, Shirley McClure, and Maria W. Faust national poetry prizes, she is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. Kathleen holds masters degrees in Education and English from Stanford University and CSU Fresno. She teaches at Skyline College, The Writing Salon, and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) in San Francisco, and has taught/advised student teachers in the credential program at Mills College. For ten years she directed Women on Writing: WOW! Voices Now on the Skyline campus, celebrating creativity in writers of all ages. In 2018-2019 she was a writer-in-residence at Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Kathleen serves on the poetry staff for The MacGuffin literary journal.
Judge’s Websites
2022 Winners
- First Prize: Tobey Hiller of San Rafael, CA
A Walk in the High Country - Second Prize: Robert Eastwood of San Ramon, CA
Daughter - Third Prize: Erica Reid of Fort Collins, CO
Smash Room
2022 Honorable Mentions
Angie Minkin of San Francisco, CA for Song of Myself as I Listen to Rhapsody in Blue
Eleanor Channell of Galisteo, NM for Flight of Swallows
Gail White of Breaux Bridge, LA for The Old Lover’s Message to the Young
Diane Moomey of Half Moon Bay, CA for Stairs
Wendy Videlock of Palisade, CO for Lost Poet on the Western Slope
Robin Michel of San Francisco, CA for Sonnet of Apology after a Difficult Week