loose leaf and spiral bound

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...

If you'll recall, I told you a while back about how my very dear friend was riding his bicycle from California to New York with the purpose of spreading the word about suicide awareness and prevention and the healing power of art. His non-profit organization, RISE , is amazing. You really should check out their site. He and his friend quit their jobs, put all of their worldly possessions in storage and set out to make a difference. ANYWAY, I decided that I was going to do something pretty rad , and I began writing a piece of poetry as they were riding across the United States. It was hard because I couldn't move forward until they did. This was such an important piece for me to write because of the pride I have in those two and what they accomplished and I really don't have a better way to show them other than writing it down. It is sincerely humbling to have friends like these. So here it is. I call this one, "Rising in Three Parts": 1. An Open Letter to a Frie...

Once again, Jimmy Blackwell and I worked on another shared writing prompt. He tackled seeing the light that lives in the dark (which you can read here ) - - and I took on when darkness hides inside the light. I've got to say that this was a tricky prompt for me and gave me more than a few shaky moments. It has honestly taken me waaaaay longer than the allotted two weeks to get this far. This is rough and raw, so be gentle...I am an optimistic person by nature and discussing darkness is tough for me. Makes me go to a place that is uncomfortable to some degree. Like that saying "hurt so good"? Something like that. It's not that I won't go there or don't want to go there - it's just a touch difficult. But good for me. So here it is: Together We looked so damned beautiful together. Friends wanted to be us. Around us at a minimum. Our picture perfectness was awful. Horrible. Intolerable at best. Our bright shiny smiles full of too many white teeth blinded th...