I Don’t Actually Mention Michael Jackson: Adam Robinson

Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he runs Publishing Genius and plays guitar in Sweatpants, a rock band. His first book, Adam Robison and Other Poems, was just released by Narrow House. He writes for HTMLGIANT, the Internet literature magazine blog of the future. Of the book, Johannes Göransson says, “In this enchantingly ‘disenchantingly meta’ collection of relentless poems, Adam Robinson evokes the rapid and jarring connectivity of Internet searches with the dadaistic charm of Tristan Tzara and Henry Parland.” And Blake Butler says, “Adam can truly speak it in a way I have never heard anyone else speak.”

Michael Kimball: When somebody looks at the cover of your book, the first thing they are confronted with is a portrait that could be either Adam Robinson or Adam Robison. Then the title is Adam Robison and Other Poems and then author of the book is designated as Adam Robinson.

Adam Robi[n]son: The Adam Robison/Robinson thing isn’t supposed to be a dichotomy. I mean, they aren’t really two separate things. Robison isn’t my doppelganger. I think of it more like Borges and I, like I don’t know who’s writing what.

Kimball: Just two weeks ago, I ate in Borges’ favorite restaurant in Buenos Aires, Munich, and the waiter said (in Spanish) that he used to wait on Borges. So the Borges/I and the Adam Robinson/AdamRobison/I, this comes up again in the first piece in the book, Introduction. In the third stanza, the I seems to be Adam Robinson (since he mentions “the fake name ‘Adam Robison’”). Then the I seems to be Adam Robison (“I, Adam Robison,”). And then in the last stanza, the figure described is Adam Robison and so would seem to be being presented from Adam Robinson (unless the piece has switch perspectives to third person).

Robi[n]son: That’s an interesting and not totally crazy way to read the entire book, trying to parse out the parts that are Robison versus Robinson — but there isn’t a tidy distinction. That’s because there aren’t tidy distinctions. I am always both Robinson and Robison. Sometimes, in a way that is as real as anything else. I am also Kimball. I behave and think differently around you than I do around, say, Mom or Cats. Because I am Mom and Cats sometimes too. Why not? That’s the gist of the Cormac McCarthy epigraph — when John Grady Cole is arguing with what’s-his-face about how what’s-his-face wouldn’t have been born if his mother never met his father — but, like, how do we know that? How the eff did I get my consciousness and you get yours, which is so much different? There were 10 million sperms rushing to the egg – what if a different one had been the fastest?

Kimball: I like that you further extend all this by having a poem called “Adam Robinson” along with two different poems called “Adam Robison,” but let’s talk about some of the other biographical poems – a range of people from philosophers like Hélène Cixous and Søren Kierkegaard to baseball players like Mario Mendoza and Mike Schmidt to musicians and religious figures like Glenn Tipton and Martin Luther to friends and family like Josh Maday and to Erma Ruth Rogers Tyner.

Robi[n]son: The fact is that I never sat down with a “Robison voice” to write from, except to use it as an excuse to employ a silly vernacular. I don’t think the character is as fully fleshed as, say, Andy Devine, who becomes really conceivable as a person just from the things he writes. But Adam Robison is just one subject in the book, not the author. The book is so much about identity, and part of the title is a game about how much does my identity shift by deleting one letter?

And then, what happens to identity if I change every letter? Like, what if I make my name Glenn Tipton? Not much data about Glenn Tipton gets conveyed in that poem, but there’s a lot about me. “Glenn Tipton” was assigned by someone when I posted to a blog that I was taking suggestions for people to write poems about. I didn’t know anything about him, didn’t know he was in Judas Priest, but I had some keen associations with Judas Priest. So, yeah, most of the poems are really about me, even through the biography lens.

Kimball: Two other poems that I take to be really about you even though they are a kind of essay-poem are “Introduction” and “Super Introduction.” I love what you’re doing with the form with those. Maybe just talk about how you came to write those and what you were after with them.

Robi[n]son: “Introduction” started as a challenge (from myself) to figure out my point of view as a writer. It was kind of a “why do I bother” thing, because I’m often more interested in publishing or sometimes even my day job than writing. Sometimes I lack conviction or spizzerinctum. Rilke said a writer is a person that must write, and I think that’s crap. Anyway, it’s not me. I am primarily impelled by some amazing reading experiences that I want to recreate for others. So “Introduction” is a combination of reminding myself how astounding literature can be, mixed with figuring out my relationship to it, what I can add that ought to be added.

“Super Introduction,” which is the last poem in the book, is a similar appreciation of poetry — it’s as close as I’ll get to a manifesto, I suppose — but in this one I combine my reflections with thoughts on justice and forgiveness. I think there is so much personal stuff in ARAOP, which is okay with me because I believe sharing narratives is productive, but it’s also important to me to be clear about my intentions. I end with “Super Introduction” because I think the book’s takeaway is that poetry is our best shot at, um . . . can I say world peace? Or, to be less grandiose, understanding what’s understandable.

Kimball: I feel as if we should stop there, but I have a random statement/question to mention. There’s an index, which is mostly biographical. And I noticed, for one, that Adam Robison isn’t listed and, for two, that the poem “Adam Robinson” isn’t listed under Robinsons, and, for three, that certain things listed in the index, which shall remain unnamed, are not explicit in the poems to which they are referenced. So maybe talk about the why of the index in relation to any of that or its very existence.

Robi[n]son: I’m glad you spent so much time with the index. That’s really gratifying, because it’s meant to be a poem in itself, sort of. It’s not supposed to be a straight-up thing. Some parts of it are traditional — yes, I said “Matthea Harvey” on page 40 — but some things are meant to be clues. For instance, I don’t actually mention Michael Jackson in “Adam Robinson,” but his song “Bad” provides the key to unlocking that poem. I didn’t list “Adam Robinson” with my family because I think Adam Robinson, in the book, is a distinct character. And for Robison, he’d have to have every page listed, maybe. I’m not sure. It’s a mutable document.

Michael Kimball’s third novel, DEAR EVERYBODY, is now in paperback in the US, UK, and Canada. The Believer calls it “a curatorial masterpiece.” Time Out New York calls the writing “stunning.” And the Los Angeles Times says the book is “funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking.” His first two novels are THE WAY THE FAMILY GOT AWAY (2000) and HOW MUCH OF US THERE WAS (2005). His three novels have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages. His work has been on NPR’s All Things Considered and in Vice, as well as The Guardian, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, Open City, Unsaid, and New York Tyrant. He is also responsible for Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard)—and two documentary films, I WILL SMASH YOU (2009) and 60 WRITERS/60 PLACES (2010).