Richard Robbins reads from new book Oct. 26, Raven Bookstore, Lawrence KS

Richard Robbins will read from his new book Body Turn to Rain: New & Selected Poems (Lynx House Press) at the upcoming Big Tent Reading Series, with Nino Cipri and Celeste Gainey--7 pm, 7th & Mass. Robbins's poems combine narrative with images to create surprise, as in this poem "Old Country Portraits." It appears to be a still life, suggesting a Vermeer portrait, a “lost sister” performing a trick on the family by snapping away the table cloth. The final trickery is the subtle interplay between the living and the dead.

Old Country Portraits by Richard Robbins © 2017

My lost sister used to try the trick

with the tablecloth, waiting until

the wine had been poured, the gravy boat filled,

before snapping the linen her way

smug as a matador, staring down

silver and crystal that would dare move,

paying no mind to the ancestor gloom

gliding across the wallpaper like clouds

of a disapproving front—no hutch

or bureau spared, no lost sister sure

the trick would work this time, all those she loved

in another room, nibbling saltines,

or in the kitchen plating the last

of the roast beef. How amazed they would be

to be called to the mahogany room

for supper, to find something missing,

something beautiful, finally, they could

never explain, the wine twittering

in its half-globes, candles aflutter, each

thing in its place, or so it seemed then,

even though their lives had changed for good.

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William Trowbridge writes of Robbins’ new collection: "The poems are grounded in the geography of the American west-iots seasons, its people, its destruction-and lifted by the music Robbins coaxes out of the language. They reveal a sympathy with nature and a passion for humane awareness in a culture which often seems to tell us merely to consume and, ‘Be happy you know nothing.’"

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Richard Robbins was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Southern California and Montana. He studied as an undergraduate with Glover Davis and Carolyn Forché at San Diego State University and as a graduate student with Richard Hugo, Madeline DeFrees, Tess Gallagher, and William Pitt Root at the University of Montana. He has published five full-length books: The Invisible Wedding was published in 1984 by the University of Missouri Press as part of its Breakthrough Series, Famous Persons We Have Known in 2000 by Eastern Washington University Press, and The Untested Hand in 2008 by The Backwaters Press. Radioactive City won the Bellday Prize and was published in 2009 by Bellday Books. Other Americas was released in 2010 by Blueroad Press. His Body Turn to Rain: New & Selected Poems is new in 2017.  Over the years, he's received awards and fellowships from The Loft, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America. From 1986-2014, Robbins directed the Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University Mankato, where he continues to direct the creative writing program. In 2006, he was awarded the Kay Sexton Award for long-standing dedication and outstanding work in fostering books, reading and literary activity in Minnesota. http://faculty.mnsu.edu/richardrobbins/

RICHARD ROBBINS WILL READ IN K.C., DEC. 7, WITH DENISE LOW & PIPER ABERNATHY. SEE A SAMPLE POEM BY ROBBINS: "RIGHT."

The Writers Place Reading featuring Richard Robbins, Piper Abnernathy, and Denise Low
 3607 Pennsylvania Avenue Kansas City, MO 64111 (816) 753-1090
Friday, Dec. 7,  7 PM – 9 PM http://writersplaceorg.squarespace.com/calendar/  $3 members; $5 nonmembers; no one turned away for lack of funds

 Richard Robbins grew up in Southern California and Montana. He studied with Richard Hugo and Madeline DeFrees at the University of Montana, where he earned his MFA. He has published five books of poems, most recently Radioactive City and Other Americas. He has received awards from The Loft, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America. He directs the creative writing program and Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is vice president of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs national board.

Piper Abernathy is a poet and educator. She has a M.Ed. in Literacy from Rockhurst University and a MFA in Poetry from UMKC, and she taught high school locally for nine years. Piper is currently a regional coordinator for Poetry Out Loud and an adjunct instructor for Penn Valley. Her poetry can be found in Pleiades, Mid-American Review, Memorious, and the I-70 Review.

Denise (Dotson) Low is former Kansas Poet Laureate, with 20 published books of poetry, personal essays, and scholarship. She is a member of the national board of the Associated Writers & Writing Programs and was immediate past president. For 25 years she taught at Haskell Indian Nations University, and she has been visiting professor at the University of Kansas and University of Richmond. Currently she teaches courses for Baker University. She has awards from the NEH, the Lannan Foundation, The Newberry Library, the Academy of American Poets, and the Kansas Arts Commission. Her academic books include prose about Native and settler literatures of the middle plains region. She is on the national board of AWP as past president.

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This is the first reading by Minnesota poet Richard Robbins in this area. Here’s a poem by him and more information. He is an original voice, with exquisite craft.

 RIGHT
by Richard Robbins

The other one has tried to reach it
across the ocean of the shoulder,
tried to stop it from hitting, from sending
a man to death with a scribbled word.

The body wishes it would listen
more to the body, refuse for once
this urge to travel an alley without
eye, tongue, or the two versatile feet.

The heart, tomorrow, will have her way
with it. Like the bones of the rib cage,
so birds of the air. The river will turn
in its path, the blue ground angle up,

every millionth part of God conspire
to bring the right to answer for itself,
for all the hands that closed or waved away
the weak untouchable things, come now

to throne, to town, his own driveway on
their knees to be healed.

 

Richard Robbins is director of the  Good Thunder Reading Series and Univ. of Minn.-Mankato  M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing. His publications include: 

Other Americas, Blueroad Press, 2010
Radioactive City, Bellday Books, 2009, Bellday Poetry Prize.
The Untested Hand, Backwaters P, 2008
Famous Persons We Have Known, Eastern Washington UP, 2000
The Invisible Wedding, U of Missouri P, 1984
Toward New Weather [chapbook], Frontier Award Committee, 1978
Where We Are: The Montana Poets Anthology [co-editor], SmokeRoot P, 1978

 

LINKS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Robbins_(poet)

 http://www.pw.org/content/richard_robbins_1

http://www.english2.mnsu.edu/robbins/