Sophie Robinson and The Unreasonable Heat

Today I checked weather.com and felt an irrational surge of anger when I saw that the temperature could hit 97 degrees on Friday. Unreasonable!, I thought. Part of my frustration is that I enjoy walking to class in the morning, however, I do not enjoy arriving as a sweaty mess. Pit stains and a shiny nose as opposed to jeans and a peacoat. No thank you, sir!

Last night I attended a reading, the first of the fall semester, by a young (b. 1985) British poet named Sophie Robinson. It was the most interesting, engaging reading I’ve been to in a year. cris cheek’s introduction of Robinson was a piece of art in itself—it kept unraveling long after I thought it would end, part memoir, part political manifesto, all intertwined with a steady familiarizing of Robinson and her work with the crowd. All introductions should be so bold.

I ended up leaning against a bookcase the entire half-hour because there weren’t enough chairs, but it was worth it. Sophie Robinson, the author of one book, a, from Les Figues Press, and a chapbook, the lotion, was wonderful. She mentioned an affinity for Frank O’Hara and that showed in her work with the quick, charming details, but Robinson seemed to have more of an edge than O’Hara did, and her poetry never felt like a shallow reflection of O’Hara’s, which is how I sometimes think of Ange Mlinko. All glitter and city but no punch.

At times, Robinson seemed to have more of a narrative than O’Hara, and her images were really quirky and strange, not because they were so exotic or surreal, but in the way they were just one step shy of normalacy—I’m thinking of one poem where she said something about filling a bathtub with two inches of water and shivering in it all night. Gah! The image lingers.

I’m going to have to buy a book before I can say more, but below is a poem I found on her blog, which it looks like she rarely updates. (But there are more poems on it.)

preshus

Above all things I must remember to ART to wrap
My children up in blankets like pigs to the slaughter &
To keep my them my sausages in the fridge that’s where I
Like them best.

What is love but last year’s hate. What is hate but last
Year’s death or travelcard or cardigan or anything
Else you have to lose to drop off
The edge. Follow the river
Around drink whiskey
For the corpses.

At the sink I have been silly with myself in the past I
Will admit I have been careless -

Blackouts.

Tease me feed me neatly to your dogs. Do not let them
Gobble. Do not scratch yourself in public YOU
Are as noisy & ineffectual as a travel hairdryer,
ma noisette je te promets, do not sadden swallow
til you vomit or bust wide open but never never not
To ART or drink whiskey or play amongst the
Thighs of your favourite your only horse, stabled,
Skin-drunk and this is the year that matters or
You will rot.

Fast lines, crammed with details, and I love the way she forces syntax to bend across lines, like, Do not let them/Gobble. She's funny, and an interesting mix of contemporary and formal, capable of appealing to a wide range of crowds. Someone to follow.

Here's a video if you're interested. The reading at Miami was better, but I tried to find something more recent and, alas, could not. Someone should have recorded her last night, as well as cris's intro.

In other news, I googled “novels about poets” and found a list with said subject matter from The Guardian, and I read the first book on it, Winslow in Love by Kevin Canty. Winslow in Love SUX, and it’s annoyed me enough to want to write about it. Some people say if you don't like something it's not worth writing about, but I've never felt that. I find it entertaining, and I also, at times, consider it part of my contribution to culture. Someone working at The Guardian recommended a shitty book, which I ended up reading. Maybe I can save someone else a few hours. Cheers.