Kit Robinson

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 more than twenty 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.

• 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)
• Windows, 1985, Whale Cloth
• A Day Off, 1985, State One
• Ice Cubes, 1987, Roof Books (New York, NY)
• Individuals, 1988, Chax Press (Tucson, AZ) - with Lyn Hejinian
• Covers, 1988, The Figures (Great Barrington, MA)
• The Champagne of Concrete, 1991, Potes & Poets
• Counter Meditation, 1991, Zasterle (Tenerife, Spain)
• Balance Sheet, 1993, Roof Books (New York, NY)
• Democracy Boulevard, 1999, Roof Books (New York, NY)
• Cloud Eight, 1999, Sound & Language - with Alan Bernheimer
• The Crave, 2002, Atelos (Berkeley, CA)
• 9:45, 2003, The Post Apollo Press (Sausalito, CA)
• The Messianic Trees: Selected Poems, 1976-2003, 2008, Adventures in Poetry ISBN 978-0-9761612-6-4
• Train I Ride, 2009, BookThug, ISBN 978-1-897388-42-6
• Determination, 2010, Cuneiform Press (Brooklyn, NY) ISBN 978-0-9827926-3-6
• Marine Layer, 2015, BlazeVOX Books (Buffalo, NY) ISBN 978-1-60964-229-7

• Electronic Poetry Center Kit Robinson Page @ EPC
• Robinson Page @ PennSound this page contains links to audio files, podcasts, and various recordings of readings and interviews

• Not About Trees: Interview with Kit Robinson, Part I interview conducted by poet Laura Hinton, published on-line April 18, 2009. Note: there are audio files (titled "Sound Pieces") of Robinson reading and discussing his work, included in this interview and in Part 2 of the interview below:
  • “Writing, as Running”: Interview with Kit Robinson, Part 2