Adam Robison on Adam Robinson’s Adam Robison and Other Poems.

Adam Robison reviews Adam Robison and Other Poems by Adam Robinson

Regarding Adam Robinson’s poetry, the Baltimore City Paper said:

a mix of classical and mundane references imbues lines like “There would be a pronounced lack/Of throwing Nerf balls to paralytics/In the basement” with more meaning than they have any right to have.

That’s debatable. How do the poems in Adam Robison and Other Poems, which read like bad Wikipedia entries, become meaningful? I mean, some read as if they were written by that poet’s nosy neighbor from Pale Fire—as in they’re all self-involved, even when they’re about other people.

And many of them are about other people. For instance, these: Kierkegaard, Mike Schmidt, Black Diamond, Xanana Gusmao, Hélène Cixous, and Robinson’s grandmother. There is one poem called, “Two Poems, Neither About Bas Jan Ader.”

Bas Jan Ader was pretty cool. He died of sailing art. The poem that is not about him covers that.

There is a Danish term, “Hiin Enkelte.” It means, “That One.” “That singular individual.” “That solitary person alive in – what the eff is this? – the World.” I’m not saying that Adam Robinson locates such a concept in the amalgam of these diverse identities. What does seem to happen, however, is that through Robinson’s ecstatic syntax, it becomes fun to care about people and their junk. By “junk” I mean error, like the young professional who sits next to the smelly old woman on the bus in “I’m Going to Have SEX with These People.” Because it was Calvin who wrote the Institutes, not Aquinas as Robinson says in “Martin Luther,” and Brahms always had both of his hands.

By getting so much wrong, Robinson releases poetry’s pressure valve. Mistakes provoke the reader, make them winners with all their knowledge, make the book interesting, make them care about things. Perhaps that’s how it’s possible to learn about pollution based on a poem that uses the words “boy howdy,” “holy wow” and “broham.”

Overheard: “I didn’t like poetry until I realized that I was in charge of deciding what was ‘good’ and what was ‘bad’, based on what I liked.” Adam Robinson said that.

I, too, like it— all the genuine fiddle.

Adam Robinson reads at Polestar Poetry Series at CakeShop (152 Ludlow Street / NYC) with Jason Koo and Matvei Yankelevich this Sunday, June 6 at 5 PM.