It’s hard to account for the particular magic of Kit Robinson’s work, which is understated to the point of being laconic, never seems to worry much about presenting itself as “poetic,” and slips without any apparent effort from puns to jokey asides to densely rhymed wordplay to philosophical quiddities to emotionally open “truth statements” in a way that doesn’t privilege any one tone over another: they’re all treated as natural parts of the poem, which in turn gets treated less like a precious verbal object than as a heightened perception of the everyday, as easy (and inevitable) as talking or breathing.

Rodney Koeneke

As Kit Robinson notes in this fine collection of his writing—“language courses through us . . . and we can tap into it at any time.” In this paced history, the many forms of his poetic notation shine with the humor of a poet who knows that “dreams count you among the players in the all universe commodities sweepstakes,” and who works “in collaboration with [his] trusted business partners, the birds.”

Joanne Kyger

With calm humour Kit Robinson has bounced through the decades, lifting his eyes from the pates below to the golden hoop through which he’s deftly dropped so many memorable books. The Messianic Trees (cue organ) is a xylophone for the soul; the music as he passes; poems that refresh eye and mind and shift for a second glance.