Breakable Things

by Loren Kleinman

After the fracture, after the breaks in the surface, there is always light. Breakable Things is a testament to the idea that everything is breakable, and everything somehow finds its way back together again. Whether it's past, present, and future; falling in love and out; or darkness and light, life is full of beautiful contrasts. Loren Kleinman presents the world in breakable bones, cabinets, hearts, sexuality, and more. She shows us that broken does not mean damaged, and that it's a necessary part in the process of becoming a whole person.                is a rattling tribute to the fragility of consciousness and memory. "I'm cut on the floor, / porcelain in the skin, / and he breaks / he breaks he breaks he breaks me," Loren Kleinman writes. Fastened with pinching, deep detail, the shock of loss and a seasoned sense of being resonate throughout this book. Here Kleinman describes the bewilderment of being and the feelings that come from breathing, existing. "I step into the dirt. / Its dampness / makes me feel I exist." Caked with shame and smoke, soot and blinking bugs Kleinman renders a panorama of sharp, dazzling poems that haunt and captivate us long after the reading of this book is completed. --  With unpretentious clarity, guts and a bit of soul, has solidified Loren Kleinman as my favorite new poet. -- [Breakable Things] has a visceral quality. The images and lines within these poems are precise and surprising--layered with texture. I was drawn in by the details and kept connected with the phrasing. There is a flow to this text, a common experience of relationships coupled with the unique perspective of being alone, which creates fascination within the reader. --    Loren Kleinman's shining new collection of poems "Breakable Things" examines love and loss and renewal in its many faces. This is a collection, yes, where things are cracked and breaking, where people are "dressed in shame and smoke", but there are, as well, highly charged erotic poems that engages the fusing of not only bodies but of souls as well. There are poems of touching intimacy --- memorials and testimonials to mothers, lovers, children and friends, as well very sensual poems to the ocean, the moon and the love of various kinds of foods as in the gorgeous "Wildlife in my Kitchen." This is a collection where "Two boys" before our astonished eyes, "become butterflies" and then there is the truly outstanding, "Your Body is a Green Dress" that confronts and seeks to make sense of the atrocity of a sixteen year olds death at the hands of her classmate.  This is a raw, powerful collection of poems that deserves a place on all our bookshelves.

90 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 25, 2015

About the author

Loren Kleinman's nonfiction has appeared in Ms., The New York Times, The New York Daily News, the Huffington Post, Ploughshares, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Woman’s Day, Seventeen, Good Housekeeping, BUST, USA Today, The Rumpus and more. She is the editor of the anthology Indie Authors Naked, which was an Amazon Top 100 bestseller in Journalism in the UK and USA. Kleinman’s The Dark Cave Between My Ribs was named one of the best poetry books of 2014 by Entropy Magazine. Her co-edited collection with Amye Archer My Body, My Words (Big Table Publishing), was named one of the “11 New Feminist Books That Could Totally Change Your Year” by Bustle. My Body, My Wordsalso received praise from Hello Giggles, BUST, Pop Sugar, WOW! Women on Writing,The Brooklyn Rail and more. Her short film, Suffering Is the Easy Part, directed and produced by Jaime Ekkens, is distributed by Seed&Spark and Docademia.

Reviews

[John Lopes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loren Kleiman’s “Breakable Things” is a disarming honest collection of poetry; a testament to the frailty of the heart, and a loving dedication to those who have overcome loss. Through her unpretentious and approachable account she guided this reader through a self-examination and prompted the question, has every woman I loved a reflection of myself, my self-doubt and insecurities?

Breakable Things was ultimately to this reader, the assurance that all things are breakable and all things are repairable, in love, lust and beyond. A reminder of the fragility that unites the human condition.

[Anelise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the author, Loren Kleinman, in exchange for an honest review.

Breakable Things is a collection of 54 poems written completely in free-verse. Each poem is not terribly long with great imagery as I can clearly picture each poem as a scene in my head. Here are some of my favorite lines from three of the poems.

“First-Date Oysters”
Death takes the shape
of an oyster tonight.
I swallow it.

“We Are Meant to Be in the Drawer”
“Dying a little each day
is better than having to face the living.”

“We Are Already Ghosts”
“No mistakes,
Only footprints
And pebbles on the road.”

Breakable Things provides a testament that while everything can be broken, it can also be fixed or brought back together again. Loren Kleinman uses various objects as a metaphor of a human; we can piece ourselves back together again after we shatter. Kind of like the lyrics from the song Still I Rise by Yolanda Adams.

[HIJXS DEL COSMOS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: (3.5 stars)

Breakable Things is such a powerful book. Some poems were amazing, whereas I think some of them needed "more" to make me feel something. I'm not saying that they were bad, because they weren't. With each poem, you learned something new; something magical. I think that what gives this book its magic is that you can actually feel the author's sincerity. Every poem felt truly vivid, as if we were part of every poem. I would’ve liked this book to be longer because I truly enjoyed Loren Kleinman's poetry writing style!

[Zenab Kakar · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book