Book Thirteen

The Crave

Kit Robinson

ISBN: 1-891190-13-X
Publication: 2002
Pages: 120

As is often the case with artists (as with athletes) whose moves seem effortless, Kit Robinson writes inimitable work. No one can replicate his moves, no one can equal what he has done with the various procedures he has devised and the bewildering though seemingly simple forms that he has invented. The poems of his new book, The Crave, are all structured around a 3-line stanza capable of seemingly endless variation. Imagine Jelly Roll Morton meeting Emily Dickinson in 21st-century Las Vegas to compose occasional metaphysical stanzas.

The poems of The Crave, while being immediate and even intimate at times, are markedly edgy. Throughout his career as a writer, Kit Robinson has scrutinized the way we live — the materials with which we compose our lives and the assumptions that structure them. His writings are masterful, often beautiful, always smart, and very funny. As someone thinking about contemporary life, there is much that he sees about which he has remained unconvinced. The work is characteristically skeptical, taking events, both in private experience and in the shared experiences of the cultural sphere, not only with a grain of salt but with a dash of cayenne. This skepticism is a manifestation of a brilliant critical mind at work - and one capable of producing poems that offer enormous pleasure.

Using materials from news media, work place documents, popular culture, dreams, financial institutions, and the technology industry as well as from the daily debris of neighborhoods and scraps of domesticity, Kit Robinson's work is about negotiating a way through the contemporary milieu in quest of a good history. The writing can be quick and it can be hilarious, but it speaks from experience and with that experience there has come wisdom.