The Preembroidered Moment

  by Jim Klein

2018

paperback / 136 pages

ISBN 978-0-9831465-3-7

$15.00 (plus tax and $3.00 S/H) 

JIM KLEIN’s books include The Preembroidered Moment; Blue Chevies; To Eat Is Human, Digest Divine; and Trinis Talk Like the Birds, a chapbook. He has published more than 100 poems in literary magazines, including Mudfish, Beloit Poetry Journal, Berkeley Poetry Review, Field, Gandhabba, Onthebus, Poetry Now, Pulpsmith, Unmuzzled Ox, and the Wormwood Review, a Special Section. He leads a weekly poetry workshop in Rutherford, NJ, and edits The Red Wheelbarrow. 

See also:

The Dumb Have the Advantage

Trinis Talk Like the Birds

Jim Klein's paintings

Red Wheelbarrow Poets

The Red Wheelbarrow 10 Year Anniversary Issue

The Preembroidered Moment follows Jim Klein from his first hospitalization for bipolar disorder through his resulting insights, change in perception, and movement into poetry. The poems come from the period between 1969, when he was working on his dissertation at the University of Illinois, and 1986, when he lost his position as an Associate Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford, NJ.

As Matt Rohrer puts it, "This is a poet with a clear eye, a strange past, and an enormous heart."

Clarity and directness.

“There are poems in this book that will slay you with their clarity. Clarity and directness are two of Klein’s many strengths—the way he invites you into an experience without telling you what to think. And the conclusion you always come to on your own is that this is a poet with a strange past, a clear eye and an enormous heart. I’ve loved these poems for many years now and am glad you’re going to get the chance to read them, whoever you are.”

— Matthew Rohrer, poet; author of The Others, Surrounded by Friends, Destroyer and Preserver, Rise Up, Satellite

A poet of madness . . . [and] a fierce love poet.

“Jim Klein is not a confessional poet, he’s a consciousness poet. He observes his own actions and even his own thoughts as if they were an outside force acting on him, which I find a much more interesting and honest approach than making yourself the hero of your own story. He is a poet of madness, revealing the insanity of the outside world and the outsideness of his insanity. Substitute “love” for “insanity” and you’ll see why he’s also a fierce love poet. The Preembroidered Moment is a comprehensive, heartbreaking demonstration of all of the above and more.

— Don Zirilli, poet; editor of Now Culture

Intensely told and richly textured.

“The poet Jim Klein takes us inside his bipolar mind—offering a daring and rare glimpse of a descent into madness and out again. Intensely told and richly textured, The Preembroidered Moment will be of interest to creative people and psychotherapists alike.”

— Bonnie Zindel, psychoanalyst; novelist; Literary Arts Editor, Psychoanalytic Perspectives; Editor, Writing on the Moon

Can't be beat.

“If I were playing poker, I’d say Klein had the nuts.

The hand is a sealed deal. Can’t be beat.

I think The Preembroidered Moment can stand next to anything.

I wish my mud pie looked like his.

He conquered big.”

— Kathy Kuenzle, poet