12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kit Robinson
Kit Robinson is a Bay Area poet, writer, and musician.He was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1949, and earned a BA at Yale University.He is the author of two dozen collections of poetry, including Tunes& Tens (Roof, 2025), Quarantina (Lavender Ink, 2022), ThoughtBalloon (Roof, 2019), Leaves of Class (Chax,2017), Marine Layer (BlazeVOX, 2015) and The MessianicTrees: Selected Poems, 1976-2003 (Adventures in Poetry, 2009). Hispublished collaborations include Individuals with Lyn Hejinian, CloudEight with Alan Bernheimer, and A Mammal of Style with TedGreenwald. Recent poems appear in Brooklyn Rail, Three Fold, TrafficReport, R&R, and The Best American Poetry Pick of the Week.
A collaborator on The Grand Piano:An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco 1975–1980 (ModeA, 2010), Robinson has taught with California Poets in the Schools, performedwith San Francisco Poets Theater and, with poet Lyn Hejinian,produced In the American Tree: New Writing by Poets, a weekly BayArea radio show of interviews and readings. Kit has received fellowships fromboth the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council, aswell as an award from the Fund for Poetry. His papers are collected at TheBancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. His essays onpoetics, art, travel and music may be found at hiswebsite: www.kitrobinson.net. He lives in Berkeley and plays Cuban tres guitar in thecharanga band Calle Ocho.
Robinson’s most recent publications aretwo reminiscences of Lyn Hejinian, one in the LosAngeles Review of Books and another in ThePoetry Project Newsletter, as well as an appreciation of NeeliCherkovski in TheBrooklyn Rail. He also recently published reviews of books by LynHejinian, Tyrone Williams, Yuko Otomo, Joel Chace, Maureen Owen, and BarbaraHenning.
In a statement on poetics, Kit has said, “Poetryis the heart of language. It’s what’s left after everything else has been takenaway. All the instrumental uses of language are completely necessary. We uselanguage to invite people over, order food, build cities, etc. Take all of itaway and you are left with poetry. The fundamental truth of language is that itis subject to change. Words mean in new ways every century. Words mean in newways every year. In poetry, words mean in new ways every moment. Poetry islanguage on a holiday. Free to go where it will. But it is not jobless. The jobof poetry is to continue, despite everything that is pitted against it.”
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recentwork compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, Chinatown of Cheyenne, was hand-set and printed onfine paper by Michael Waltuch of Whale Cloth Press in Iowa City in 1974. Itchanged my life by offering irrefutable proof that I was a real poet and startinga steady stream of books from then on. My newest book is Tunes & Tensfrom Roof Books. In it I tried out two new forms: a series of poems written tomusic and a long poem comprising 73 decimas. It feels good to be exploring newwaters.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction ornon-fiction?
I came to poetry as a teenaged fan of Bob Dylan and a reader ofFerlinghetti, Ginsburg, and Kerouac, which led to the New American Poetryanthology and the New York poets Bill Berkson, Peter Schjeldahl, and TedBerrigan, who taught weekly workshops at Yale and introduced us students to thePoetry Project scene in the East Village.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Doesyour writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first draftsappear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?
After a book comes out, it usually takes me a while to get my arms arounda new project. Once I settle on a mode of production, the work usually proceedsquickly. In the 2010s, I hit on a method of writing 60 lines or an hour,whichever came first. I like to write spontaneously and edit only a little.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of shortpieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a"book" from the very beginning?
It used to be the former but lately I tend toward the latter.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Readings are a good way to test out the work, trial balloons kind of. Ido get off on performing. One never knows while writing how the work willappear to others, and the reading allows for immediate feedback. A good readingwill generate a lot of energy in the room. Afterwards people usually want tohang out and talk.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kindsof questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even thinkthe current questions are?
All kinds of theoretical questions, sure. Not that I have all theanswers. Ted Berrigan used to say, “To write great poems you have to have greattheories. And I do have great theories. I just can’t remember what they areright now.”
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?
I think the role of the writer should be to look around and see what’shappening and do whatever it takes to write it down. In that sense we arebearing witness. On the other hand, poetry has a phatic function, which is tosay, “Howdy! Nice to see you!”
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficultor essential (or both)?
That’s a tricky question. Much of the time I’ve found editors andpublishers are content to publish my poetry as is, or with occasionalsuggestions here and there. Sometimes though, an editor will challenge me to reworka piece or be more specific or put more umph in or something. I find I’m quiteresistant at first, but I try to comply and afterwards usually recognize thatthe work is improved by introducing the constraint of another perspective.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)?
Have fun!
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry totranslation)? What do you see as the appeal?
I haven’t done much translation lately. In the 90s, in preparation for atrip to the Soviet Union, I translated the 600-line Ode on Visiting theBelosaraisk Spit on the Sea of Azov by Ilya Kutik. Not having any Russian,I relied on a rough translation by the author plus a series of working sessionswith Lyn Hejinian, who was studying Russian at that time. More recently Itranslated some fragments from the Latin of De Rerum Natura by Lucretiusas part of a study group led by Lyn. The appeal of translation is the challengeof working with another language combined with the opportunity to do things inEnglish one would never otherwise think to do. More broadly, translation opensa transnational conversation that is more important than ever in today’sincreasingly nationalist environment. As writers and poets we sense intuitivelythat we are citizens of the world. The imagination is not restricted bystate-controlled boundaries.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you evenhave one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I used to write mostly in the morning after breakfast and coffee. Latelyit’s been more occasional, including the middle of the night. I keep a notebookby my bed for recording dreams and sometimes lines of poetry.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (forlack of a better word) inspiration?
Sometimes I just sit and wait. This was the way when I was working by theone-hour rule. Lately I might just walk away and come back later for a freshimpetus.
13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
For many years I have attended my daughter’s Halloween party in the samecostume, that of King Tut. I wear a coiled snake headdress and wear all blackwith a fake gold chain.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but arethere any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, scienceor visual art?
All of the above. My poem sequence “Tunes” was written while listening tofavorite music tracks by artists like Henry Threadgill, Thelonius Monk, CarlaBley, and various African and Cuban musicians. My long poem “Tens” includesmany descriptions from nature as well as two ekphrastic stanzas describingpaintings by Edouard Manet. For some years I’ve noticed that quotations crop upin my poetry, lines from poems and songs that have lodged in my head, includingmy some of my own. With “Tens” I decided to add citations in endnotes. Writerscited include Woody Guthrie, Robert Aitkin, Zora Neal Hurston, David Graeber,Douglas Woolf, J.H. Prynne, Sojun Mel Weitsman, Hozan Alan Senauke, AlfredBester, Erik Larson, Frances Richard, John Keats, John Donne, Dave Van Ronk,Farid al-din Attar, John Cage, Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, Robert Grenier,Arkaadi Dragomoshchenko, Karl Marx, Bob Dylan, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and PhilipWhalen.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, orsimply your life outside of your work?
OMG, there are so many. Right now I am rereading the Fictions ofJorge Luis Borges. Other authors I return to are Joseph Conrad, Clarice Lispector, Mario Vargas Llosa, Donald Westlake, Lorenzo Thomas, Lyn Hejinian,Ted Greenwald, Tom Raworth, Clark Coolidge, Anne Tardos, and on and on.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d like to visit Japan.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be?Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you notbeen a writer?
In elementary school I had to fill out a questionnaire that included thequestion, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer was “writer.” Ithink I was destined to be a writer. I made a living writing press releases andmarketing materials for the tech industry, and then there’s the poetry. Had Inot been a writer, I might have liked to be a musician. Playing guitar andsinging was a form of social life I enjoyed when I was younger. To do soprofessionally would have required more discipline, study, and practice than Icould muster at the time. Later in life I did pursue the study of Afro-Cubanmusic and took up the Cuban tres guitar. My life in music has opened up wholenew networks of teachers, bandmates, friends and fellow enthusiasts.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I don’t know. My parents were teachers. I think it just came naturally. Ilike putting one word after another.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The Secret History of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez. And Touchez Pas au Grisbi
Directed by Jacques Becker.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I seem to be writing poems, not sure yetwhat they will amount to.
