Kit Robinson

Bio | Publications | Works About Kit Robinson

 

Personal Information: Born in 1949
Married to Ahni Robinson
Daughter, Ericka McConnell
Granddaughter, Flora Beatrice Breitbard

Nationality: U.S.A.

Education: B.A., Philosophy and English Literature, Yale University

Career: Principal, Kit Robinson Communications (2003-present)
Corporate communications management positions at
Motiva, Commerce One, PeopleSoft, Blanc & Otus Public Relations
and ComputerLand Corporation (1983-2003)
California Poets in the Schools (1976-1983)

Awards/Honors: Fund for Poetry prize (1995)
U.S. State Dept. (USIA) sponsored tour of Stockholm, Helsinki and Leningrad (1990)
California Arts Council artist in community fellowship (1982)
National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship (1979)

Kit Robinson with Flora Photo credit: Ericka McConnell  
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Publications

 Poetry

Thought Balloon (Roof, 2019)

Leaves of Class (Chax, 2017)

Marine Layer (BlazeVOX, 2015)

Catalan Passages (Streets and Roads, 2015)

A Mammal of Style (with Ted Greenwald, Roof Books, 2013)

Takeaway (with Ted Greenwald, c_L Books, 2013)

Determination (Cuneiform Press, 2010)

Train I Ride (BookThug, 2009)

The Messianic Trees: Selected Poems, 1976-2003 (Adventures in Poetry, 2009)

9:45 (The Post-Apollo Press, 2003)

The Crave (Atelos, 2002)

Cloud Eight (with Alan Bernheimer, Sound & Language, 1999)

Democracy Boulevard (Roof, 1999)

Balance Sheet (Roof, 1993)

Counter Meditation (Zasterle, 1991)

The Champagne of Concrete (Potes & Poets, 1991)

Covers (The Figures, 1988)

Individuals (with Lyn Hejinian, Chax Press, 1988)

Ice Cubes (Roof, 1987)

A Day Off (State One, 1985)

Windows (Whale Cloth, 1985)

Riddle Road (Tuumba, 1982)

Tribute to Nervous (Tuumba, 1980)

Down and Back (The Figures, 1978)

The Dolch Stanzas (This, 1976)

Chinatown of Cheyenne (Whale Cloth, 1974)

Plays

Collateral (Hills 9, 1983; The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater, Kenning Editions, 2009)

Creative Floors (Art & Con 1, 1987)


Essays

Time and Materials: The Workplace, Dreams, and Writing” and “Raising Collateral” (on Poets Theater)
in A Guide to Poetics Journal: Writing in the Expanded Field, ed. Lyn Hejinian and Barrett Watten, Wesleyan, 2013


Autobiography

The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco, 1975-1980
(with Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, Bob Perelman, Barrett Watten, Ted Pearson, Tom Mandel, Steve Benson and Rae Armantrout, Mode A, 2006-2009)


Translation

Ilya Kutik, Ode on Visiting the Belosaraisk Spit on the Sea of Azov (Aleph, 1995)


Anthologies

Resist Much / Obey Little (Spuyten Duyvil, 2017)

The Canary Islands Connection: 60 Contemporary Poets (Zasterle, 2016)

Like Musical Instruments: 83 Contemporary American Poets (Broadstone Books, 2014)

Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children (Black Radish, 2013)

Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2006)

The Addison Street Anthology: Berkeley’s Poetry Walk (Heyday Books, 2004)

Best American Poetry 2004 (Scribner, 2004)

Great American Prose Poems (Scribner, 2003)

In the American Tree (National Poetry Foundation, 1986, 2002)

From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry 1960-1990 (Sun & Moon, 1994)

Out of this World: an anthology of the St. Mark's Poetry Project, 1966-1991 (Crown, 1991)

49+1 Nouveau Poets Americains (Un Bureau Sur L'Atlantique, 1991)

Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970 (4 Walls 8 Windows, 1987)

Writing/Talks (Southern Illinois University, 1985)


Biographical/Critical Sources

Buttel, Robert; “Reading Poems by Kit Robinson: Language Poetry and Beyond,” unpublished essay, 41 pages, 2017

Friedlander, Ben; “The Literati of San Francisco,” Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism, University of Alabama, 2004

Watten, Barrett; “New Meaning and Poetic Vocabulary: From Coleridge to Jackson Mac Low,” The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics, Weslyan University, 2003