boypoet

I'm Michael Klein, a poet and writer who has written three books of poems, a memoir, a book of essays, and a chapbook of prose poems (or they might actually be very short lyric essays). My memoir, "Track Conditions," is about my experiences on the racetrack and being groom to Kentucky Derby winner, Swale. I've also edited three anthologies which all face, in one way or another, the AIDS pandemic.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of critical essays -- on poetry mostly, for the Rumpus and Los Angeles Review of Books websites. And I've also been enjoying doing interviews over the years -- mostly, with poets, though I have also interviewed writer and activist Eve Ensler and the theatre composer and lyricist, Adam Guettel (which I still have to transcribe. It's very long). I also teach in the MFA Program at Goddard College and in the summers have lately been doing a week-long memoir workshop at Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro.

At Haunted Importantly, I will be sharing news and published work and provide links to everything I can remember. And, eventually, there may be a blog, too about the movies and theater and other stuff I go to, when I leave my husband and dog and cat alone. Basically, I want this to be an open forum for ideas as they occur -- my mind, in space. Or elsewhere, depending on the temperature.

Greetings, fellow travelers…

I'm Michael Klein, a poet and writer who has been teaching for more than 20 years and recently retired from academia and started consulting writers on memoir and poetry manuscripts.

I’ve worked with V (a/k/a Eve Ensler) on her memoir, The Apology (Bloomsbury) and with the composer Ricky Ian Gordon, on his memoir coming out with FSG entitled Seeing Through: A Chronicle of Sex, Drugs and Opera.

Currently I’m working as a ghostwriter on a well-publicized true crime that happened some 20 years ago on a lonely stretch of Idaho highway. And, as strange luck would have it, I’m copy-editing a first-time writer’s book of true crime—another well publicized event about a murder that happened on Cape Cod last year. And, finally, I just started working with poet Bob Holman on a new memoir project.

If you are interested in consulting services mentioned here, please go to the contact me tab and send me your information.

As for my own projects, I’ve written two books of autobiographical non-fiction, Track Conditions and The End of Being Known, the former being an account of my time American racetracks with Kentucky Derby winner Swale. I have four books of poems out and the first one, 1990, tied with James Schuyler to win a Lambda Literary award. My latest book, The Early Minutes of Without, will be published in the fall of 2023. And I’m currently working on a memoir about art and education tentatively titled Happiness Ruined Everything.

With my friends, Bhanu Kapil and Douglas A. Martin at a restaurant in Hardwick, Vermont which we loved but never went back to again. — With my friends, Bhanu Kapil and Douglas A. Martin at a restaurant in Hardwick, Vermont which we loved but never went back to again.