Ron Silliman on Kit Robinson

Some of my favorite poets are individuals whose work tends to be opaque to me in the sense that I can tell that they think, literally process information, very differently from the way I do, but do so in ways that make it manifestly evident that they accomplish this with a high order of discrimination. That was how I first experienced the work of Louis Zukofsky, confronting it on Richard Moore’s TV series on KQED in San Francisco in 1966. My first thought was something like “That man is from outer space!” followed very quickly by the realization that “They’re very smart on his planet.” Another poet who fits this sense – I think of it as the Big Other – is Tom Raworth. They’re really sharp on his planet also. Now over the years, the influence of Zukofsky has had a huge, shaping influence on me – he doesn’t seem nearly so alien now, but I realize that it’s me who has done the changing, driven by my constant admiration for the values of his poetry. I’ve known Tom Raworth at least going back to the days when we both lived in San Francisco in the mid-1970s. I’m not all that sure that I’ve become more like him over time, but I have found those nooks & crannies in my own writing that seem to me closest to what I find in his poetry. I treasure those moments a lot.

A third poet who fits this profile is someone I’ve known quite well for decades – Kit Robinson. In the American Tree takes its title from a poem – and a radio show – of Kit’s; we’ve worked for the same employers; I once even took over an apartment of his after he’d moved out. I could inhabit his space, but there is no way I could ever have written his poems. They puzzle & fascinate me, even as they delight.