{"id":549,"date":"2013-11-20T15:37:54","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T15:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=549"},"modified":"2014-01-17T16:47:13","modified_gmt":"2014-01-17T16:47:13","slug":"keep-smiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=549","title":{"rendered":"KEEP SMILING – Loren Kleinman"},"content":{"rendered":"

On nights like this,
\nthe road bends into blackness
\nand the white lines
\npaved into the tar
\nlook like slivers of bone,
\nand the air whistles through
\nthe open window,
\nand the trees rustle their feathers
\nand music lights up like stars,
\nloud stars.<\/p>\n

The seat is warm from your jeans
\nand the smile on your face
\nfeels like the first time
\nyou’ve ever smiled,
\nit feels good,
\nso good that you keep smiling,
\nyou hold it there,
\nthat crooked smile
\nand stare off in front of you
\nthrough the windshield.<\/p>\n

You look through the night
\ntowards something you see,
\nand you recognize it,
\nin front of you,
\nlike when you recognize
\nsomeone you know
\nand you stare,
\nand smile,
\nand drive past them,<\/p>\n

passing through them,
\nand them into you,
\nand the night passes
\nthrough both of you.<\/p>\n

You smoke your last cigarette,
\nshare a light with the wind,
\nand the wind whistles
\nas you drive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"headshot,<\/a>Loren Kleinman is a young, American-born poet with roots in New Jersey. Her poetry explores the results of love and loss, and how both themes affect an individual\u2019s internal and external voice. She has a B.A. in English Literature from Drew University and an M.A. in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Sussex (UK). Her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as Nimrod, Wilderness House Literary Review, Writer\u2019s Bloc, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Paterson Literary Review (PLR), Resurgence (UK), HerCircleEzine and Aesthetica Annual. She was the recipient of the Spire Press Poetry Prize (2003), was a 2000 and 2003 Pushcart Prize nominee, and was a 2004 Nimrod\/Pablo Neruda Prize finalist for poetry. In 2003, Spire Press (NYC) published her first collection of poetry Flamenco Sketches, which explored the relationship between love and jazz. Kleinman is also a columnist for IndieReader.com (IR) where she interviews NYT bestselling indie authors. Many of those interviews in IR reappeared in USA Today and The Huffington Post. Her second collection of poetry, The Dark Cave Between My Ribs, is due to release in 2014 (Winter Goose Publishing, 2014). She is also working on a New Adult literary romance novel, This Way to Forever; and a collection of interviews and essays that explore the vibrant community of indie authors called Indie Authors Naked: Essays and Interviews on the Indie Book Community (Publisher: IndieReader).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On nights like this, the road bends into blackness and the white lines paved into the tar look like slivers of bone, and the air whistles through the open window, and the trees rustle their feathers and music lights up like stars, loud stars. The seat is warm from your jeans and the smile on [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}