loose leaf and spiral bound

I've done it before and I'll do it again. Yes, that's right, I will use the art of others to inspire my own. Creativity begets creativity. Once again Mark Hall , music producer extraordinaire from across the pond, gave me a little writing boost with his track "And the Angels Fell". (You can listen to it here .) So, like the famous song says, "I get by with a little help from my friends". (For what it's worth, I like the Beatles version, but I LOVE the Joe Cocker version.) Something about this particular track of his tugged at me. I was entranced right from the beginning, and then I could feel that slight knife-edge that slides right in. Beautiful disaster. You know the kind that hurts but you can't stop pushing it forward? Something about this track told me the story of a friendship that got twisted along the way. I can't tell if things worked out in the end, but I remain hopeful. Okay, okay, okay. Enough rambling from me. Here's th...

As you might guess from the title, I have something to say. Go ahead and read this tumblr post.  Just do it real quick: Now here's the deal. I met my husband when I was just 18 years old through a mutual friend. We started dating when I was 19. Had our daughter when I was 21, married at 22 (wedding was in May and my college graduation was in August - a busy few months), and home owners by 23. There is not a single day that I regret any part of our time together. I have a constant companion and best friend, no need to worry about dates for parties, have someone who likes to cook me dinner, fixes things around the house, and mows the lawn. IT'S GREAT!! Here we are on our wedding day. Say it with me, "D'aww"! Do I give him a hard time and tell him that he robbed my of my youth? Absolutely. (Teasing him is one of my favorite pastimes. I might even call it a hobby.) Do I mean it? Absolutely not. There were lots of folks out there who didn't think w...

Well, this is awkward. It's been three (...and a half) months since I've written anything. Not just talking about a blog post, I mean I haven't written ANYTHING. Not even so much as a stanza. It's pretty pathetic. Sorry. No excuses here, just apologies. I've been in a rut/slump/funk and am extremely disappointed in myself. Alas. If you've been a frequent-flyer to this blog, you know how much I love to use pictures as writing prompts. This time I asked my friend Thomas Brown to supply the photo. (Seriously, if you're ever in need of a photographer in Arizona...look him up. I very much enjoy his fine art photos.) I tackled this writing exercise a little differently. I gave myself only 15 minutes and decided that I would post to this blog that piece EXACTLY as it was, with NO EDITS. Gotta be honest here and tell you that it is so damned hard to put this up without any tweaks, changes, edits, or rewrites. But, I know how I sometimes wish I could see other poe...

I STAYED AT THE STANLEY HOTEL!!! (...way back in April. Yeah. Totally slacking on getting this post up. Stop judging me and just start reading. Look at my pictures at a minimum.) Let me start at the beginning. All of these wheels started turning when I sent my mother a link to an article interviewing Stephen King about his sequel to The Shining. It tells the story of an all grown up Danny Torrance. (FYI, The Shining is one of my favorite books AND favorite movies.) She got just as excited as me about this and the next thing I know, we're on a road trip to Colorado for a two night stay at the Stanley Hotel. BOOM! My Mom wins all the awards and gathers all of the cool points because she booked us a room on the 4th floor (haunted floor) and we got a Redrum coffee mug, glow in the dark squeezy ghost and frisbee, AND a night time ghost hunt. GAH! My excitement is still palpable four months later. Side note: for those who don't know, the Stanley is where Stephen King was staying...

Remember how I told you all about my act of subterfuge ? How I weaseled my poetry into an art show? Well, here's how it went... This is me living out my childhood dream of being a brown haired Vanna White.  So, there was a reception during the April First Friday Artwalk. OF COURSE THERE WAS! That didn't make me anxious at all. (It is one thing to send in poems to journals and writing competitions because those people are faceless and if/when they reject me it doesn't feel personal because I am not staring at their faces making small talk while it happens.) I was absolutely terrified of overhearing someone make fun of my stuff or tear it down to tiny little pieces. I am fairly self-aware and know that I am not a traditional "artist". There were things hanging on those gallery walls that just blew my mind and in no way could I even begin to compare my stuff to theirs. Apples to bowling balls. But guys, nothing horrible happened. In fact, people were so nice ...

Recently, I discovered that Mark Hall is a brilliant music composer and producer. He ever so graciously gave me permission to peruse some of his pieces and use them to jump start my writing flow. Here's the thing - - I love music of every kind. I played the clarinet for 8 years in the school concert band (Yes, I was a band nerd. Hard to believe, right?) and I can associate all of my favorite memories with particular songs. It's just how I'm built. I love listening to movie scores and putting myself in a "mood" and I take my daily play list at work very seriously. With that said, I had never thought to reverse the process and listen to a song first and THEN figure out the story to go with it. But that is exactly what Mark let me do. Thanks for that. (I'm not even being sarcastic. Seriously, thanks.) For reference, track #2 was the inspiration for this poem. I heard the first 30 seconds and knew precisely what was going on in that house. " This hous...

It's only been a few months since I did my last Zodiac inspired writing prompt. NO big deal. I haven't been procrastinating -- I've been busy. Yeah. BUSY. So to pick up where I left off, here we go with #8 in the series. I call it " Feral " ,  It started with one dance and we kept it up all summer long It was hot and burned so bright Nothing soft about it -- this was fierce and ferocious You wanted "us" more than anything Growling out your declarations there was nothing tame about your honesty You were so obviously in love with being in love you forgot to love those little pieces that made me Loyal to a fault You wouldn't let go of my arms Couldn't hear me cry Wanted to keep me close But when I started walking away You took of at a dead run I guess when you are done, you're done not even a single look back Now I'll never know if I made you cry My guess is that you haven't forgiven I know you haven't forgo...

So, the university that employs me holds an annual "Staff Art Show". Now it is quite obvious that I am not an artist in any formal way. I like to draw cartoon-ish doodles and make crafty things, but I would never say that I am anything close to a legitimate artist. I am like an artist's second-cousin-twice-removed-by-marriage. With that said, I definitely entered a piece of work in the show. Let me tell you why I did it and how I found a loophole to make myself feel better (read: less nauseous). Since I am a poet who happens to love photography (even though I am not a great photographer) - - I used a picture that I took last summer, worked some digital manipulation magic, transferred that image to a canvas, painted on it a bit, and then placed a poem of mine as the cherry on top. Here's what that looks like: Copyright Jennifer Klein, 2013. This was the piece I submitted to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Staff Art Show. It is titled, "The Second Time Aro...

Have you ever had the opportunity to see your favorite author in person? To listen to them speak for an hour? To meet them and shake their hand? I never thought I would say this - but I have. It was all I could have hoped for, and honestly, it was so much more. To get the full scope of how monumental this night was in my world, I need to back track a little and reveal a few personal details. Nothing juicy, so don't get your hopes up. I was an English major, my emphasis was in the areas of poetry and creative writing, who obtained a minor in Native American Studies. During my four and a half years at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Go Big Red!) there was this one particular author who kept showing up on syllabus after syllabus. Whether it was for Poetry 498, Native American Lit 102, Ethnic Studies 201 - - Sherman Alexie was sure to be on  my required reading list. It began to feel like I was spending more of my late nights and early mornings with his books than I did with my b...

On a totally un-poetic, not very "literary", note - - I would like to talk about friendship. Folks, I'll have you know that I just turned thirty. Yup. The big 3-0. I had a shindig and as all my friends and family were surrounding me, I realized that I have the most ridiculously absurd friends. And I love them dearly. However, we all have that   friend. The one who knows that deep down you are a actually a super judge-y person full of inappropriate jokes, are a borderline asshole, and loves you despite all that. Maybe, quite possibly, because of all that. Well, I am lucky enough to have a few of those friends, but one in particular demonstrates these qualities in spades. You've seen some of our random text messages here . But please, let me introduce you to a handful of our instant messages: Conversation 1:  HER: Still, that's a lot of cat heariding *herding. but possibly also hea-riding. ME: How did you know I recently became a fan of hea-riding? Heas...