Nathan McClain is the author of Scale. A Cave Canem fellow, his work has recently appeared in Poetry Northwest, Green Mountains Review, Guesthouse, The Common, and The Critical Flame, among others. He is an assistant professor of creative writing and African American literary arts at Hampshire College, and serves as poetry editor of The Massachusetts Review. In the collection Previously Owned (Four Way Books), McClain interrogates his speaker’s American heritage, history, and responsibility. While investigating myth, popular culture, governance, and more, Previously Owned connects a villanelle cataloging Sisyphus’ work and a poem critiquing police brutality. It joins complex pastorals and a recount of the author’s experience serving on jury duty. McClain’s muscular lyric explores a wide range of topics, but the intensity of his attention and the profundity of his care remain constant. While interested in the natural world and beauty, this collection scrutinizes one’s guilt and responsibility in this country in the hope of reimagining inheritance, of leaving our children a different song.