Kit Robinson

Kit Robinson (born May 17, 1949) is an American poet and translator. An early member of the San Francisco language poets circle, he has published 17 books of poetry.

Life and Work

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Robinson attended high school in Cincinnati and graduated from Yale College in 1971. In 1974, he published the one-shot poetry magazine Streets and Roads, where for the first time work by such poets as Barrett Watten, Ron Silliman, Rae Armantrout, and Bob Perelman appeared alongside that of Alan Bernheimer, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, and Merrill Gilfillan. In the 1970s and 1980s, he performed with San Francisco Poets Theater, produced "In the American Tree: New Writing by Poets," a weekly radio program of live readings and interviews on KPFA radio in Berkeley (with Lyn Hejinian), and curated the Tassajara Bakery poetry reading series (with Tom Mandel). Beginning in the 1970s, he has published seventeen books of poetry and appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines.

During the first phase of his writing career in the 1970s, Robinson worked as a cab driver, teacher’s aide, postal clerk, and legal reporter. He also taught poetry writing in schools through the California Poets in the Schools program. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Robinson adopted his current profession of corporate communications in the information technology industry.

elected publications

*"Chinatown of Cheyenne," 1974, Whale Cloth
*"The Dolch Stanzas," 1976, This Press (San Francisco, CA) - online at http://www.whalecloth.org/
*"Down and Back," 1978, The Figures (Berkeley, CA)
*"Tribute to Nervous," 1980, Tuumba (Berkeley, CA)
*"Riddle Road," 1982, Tuumba (Berkeley, CA)
*" [http://www.whalecloth.org/robinson/windows.htm Windows] ," 1985, Whale Cloth
*"A Day Off," 1985, State One
*" [http://roofbooks.com/book/index.cfm?GCOI=93780100796430&fa=description Ice Cubes] ," 1987, Roof Books (New York, NY)
*"Individuals," 1988, Chax Press (Tucson, AZ) - with Lyn Hejinian
*" [http://www.durationpress.com/thefigures/covers.htm Covers] ," 1988, The Figures (Great Barrington, MA)
*"The Champagne of Concrete," 1991, Potes & Poets
*" [http://www.durationpress.com/zasterle/counter.htm Counter Meditation] ," 1991, Zasterle (Tenerife, Spain)
*" [http://roofbooks.com/book/?GCOI=93780100462670 Balance Sheet] ," 1993, Roof Books (New York, NY)
*" [http://roofbooks.com/book/?GCOI=93780100673040 Democracy Boulevard] ," 1999, Roof Books (New York, NY)
*"Cloud Eight," 1999, Sound & Language - with Alan Bernheimer
*" [http://www.atelos.org/crave.htm The Crave] ," 2002, Atelos (Berkeley, CA)
*" [http://www.postapollopress.com/945.html 9:45] ," 2003, The Post Apollo Press (Sausalito, CA)

Other online resources

* [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pepc/authors/robinson/ Electronic Poetry Center]
* [http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Robinson.html Pennsound]