TUNES & TENS
by Kit Robinson
Known as one of the formative figures of the Bay Area Language writing moment, Kit Robinson’s new Roof book contains two long series, starting with “Tunes,” a series of short poems dedicated to jazz musicians like Henry Threadgill, Thelonious Monk, Don Cherry, Carla Bley, Billie Holiday, and an all-star lineup of World Music artists.
The second section, “Tens,” is a more formal series built from 73 ten-line stanzas or decimas using simple, flat language that might tell you “Not all people have fathers” or “things to do on Mars.” Carefully designed with a wonderful introduction from Tim Shaner, Tunes & Tens deserves your attention.
Praise for Tunes & Tens by Kit Robnson
Kit Robinson never loses the beat in these glittering up-tempo poems that shimmer with a jazz-inspired improvisational swing. “The notes spill / Out of the chord / And onto the driveway,” he writes, just as the words glide gracefully onto the page. Robinson’s eclectic musical sensibility—many of these poems are dedicated to an all-star lineup of World Music artists—provides the rhythm and pace of these wonderful pieces that seem to come from somewhere “Between language, thought, and reality.” Let the music play!
– Terence Winch
These two new sets from Kit Robinson are as crisp as a sky full of stars and as charismatic. Music is everywhere in them. Honoring instrumentalists, singers, composers, and poets, “Tunes” proceeds by elegy, wry ease, and a will to write freely, “Like Spinoza / But not in Latin.” In “Tens” one hears the natural world—in weather and movement (wind and rain, trees and sun)—as it cohabits with everyday life and its struggles (which together, of course, are also conditions for music). As in all of Robinson's poetry, phrasing is strategic, precision loaded, yet it always comes off as effortlessly as speech. The surface is smooth as fact, but take the lines apart and you get ever newer worlds. Put another way: “This music lends dignity to the proceedings / Then explodes in a burst of joy.”
– Jean Day
About the Author
Kit Robinson is a Bay Area poet, writer, and musician. He is the author of 29 collections of poetry, including Quarantina, Thought Balloon, and The Messianic Trees: Selected Poems, 1976-2003. His essays on poetics, art, travel, and music may be found at his website: www.kitrobinson.net. He lives in Berkeley and plays Cuban tres guitar in the charanga band Calle Ocho.