Hang in There is English poet John D. Robinson’s first full-length poetry collection. Many of the poems first appeared in small alternative press publications, such as Ramingo’s Porch, Outlaw Poetry, Alien Buddha Press, Misfit Magazine, North of Oxford and Analog Submission Press. Robinson is a relatively new and rising star of the underground- not only is he a prolific writer but through his publishing house Holy & Intoxicated Publications, he has printed seven Broadside Series of poems, as well as about a dozen poetry chapbooks- most notable amongst them are perhaps In The Heat Of Night by A.D. Winans and Fire On The Mountain by the late, great Doug Draime.
Robinson’s poetry is characteristically first person, confessional narrative in form which candidly tap into his life story. The poems have a raw, spontaneous feel to them and explore common underground themes in a fresh and invigorating way.
The title poem “Hang in There” is the first in the collection. It is addressed as much to the poet as to his readers. In the interview which follows this review, Robinson says of the title, “Hank Stanton (editor of Uncollected Press) came up with this title: It hit me right off: isn’t that what we’re all doing? Hanging in there for something, anything, anyone.”
HANG IN THERE
Hang in there
like a ghost falling
into the rain,
like a ship drifting
into a smothering fog,
hang in there
like it’s your last
breath, the final
word said,
the last page
read and turned,
hang in there
and scream the
injustice you feel,
that you see, as a
third of the world’s
human population
lacks
shelter
food
water,
hang in there
like heaven itself
awaiting its fate,
like waiting for the man
on a street-corner
who will make things
good again,
hang in there
whatever
it takes.
Robinson writes frequently and in graphic detail about the seamier side of existence: drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, domestic violence and sexual assault. Robinson places himself in the foreground of most of his poetic anecdotes and he is never squeamish or embarrassed in revealing to us his many fuck-ups or the sordid tales of his acquaintances. In the poem “The Code of Honour” Robinson writes, “I know low-life,/ I’ve lived it, breathed/ it: cheated, robbed,/ lied and betrayed/ most and myself.”
In the interview which follows, Robinson says of his poetry, “I guess it is mostly confessional and for sure is based on true events that I have been witnessed to, experienced or they are stories given by the people I meet, sometimes only very briefly, but sometimes that is enough to sense the sorrow or the joy and I try and capture this with a straight forward direct delivery, I think any other approach would not possibly have the resonation, the clarity and depth that I am reaching for.”
In Hang in There Robinson writes about his disjointed childhood memories and young sexual love. He writes about his European travels, work related incidents and his life as a poet and publisher. He writes portrait poems of artists and of the down and out. He writes about the women in his life and he includes his reflections on life, love, truth and death.
The poems cascade down the page in one stanza- often rolling towards an ill- defined, obscure or uncertain conclusion. Like life, nothing is resolved or neatly stitched up. Robinson often uses dialogue to propel his poetry, and combined with his unique perspectives and anecdotes, creates a highly credible experience for the reader.
In a hefty chunk of the collection, Robinson turns the spotlight on himself- yet he neither condemns nor glorifies his unruly past. The poems are sometimes told with an exuberance and cheeky humour, or sometimes with a deeply gutted, shaking of the head- but never does Robinson utter a false note.
Robinson says of his childhood and young adult life: “On my father’s side, I come from a long and staggering line of drunkards: alcohol became a part of my life very early on, drugs came a little later: I was an alcoholic by the time I was 17 or 18: I drifted, never had any ambitions of any kind, just wasn’t interested in anything else except getting drunk and high: Hash has been forever present: speed, cocaine, amphetamines were party pieces : Heroin scared me, I had lost half dozen friend’s to heroin: Codeine: Valium or any ‘downers’ was my choice.”
Robinson creates highly personal poems which intimately involve the reader. Especially memorable are the poems in which he describes waking up in a strange bed after a blackout (“The Next Move”, 3 Floors Up”), meeting the folks of a girlfriend (“It Was Vodka”), when he tries to bum a drink for his old man & is bashed (“How’d You Get That Nose?”) and how as a young soldier he resolves a previous bullying situation with a fellow recruit (“Pay Back”).
Robinson, a man in his mid-50s, threw himself headlong into writing in 2016 and he has published a flurry of chapbooks since then (see the list at the end of this post). He recently explained to Bold Monkey why he didn’t publish his work earlier, “I was writing gibberish: bullshit: as Dan Fante said (or something like) ‘Keep writing, no matter what, write that shit down, keep writing, write yourself through the shit and you’ll find a way that is comfortable’: I had written nothing that was worthwhile for publication, the odd poem perhaps: I had initially written in the direct narrative but had nothing of note to capture back then: I then started working on ‘When You Hear The Bell, There’s Nowhere To Hide’ I was in my early 50’s and had a lifetime as it were to look back over and write about and I knew I had found my way back home after taking the longest route and it feels good to be home.”
In the meta-poem “The Longest Route” Robinson writes that nothing on his journey was planned- “shit just happened.” Many of his experiences and places he ventured into were “brutal and harrowing” but that is what he writes about:
THE LONGEST ROUTE
I took the longest,
the hardest and
toughest route
and that’s what I
write about:
it wasn’t a
deliberated decision
to take the bumpy
road, that shit
just happened,
there was no fate,
dream or plan
with anything
at all: nothing I
was reaching for,
I threw myself into
what was there in
front of me and
found other worlds
and places within
them, most of them
brutal and
harrowing, self-
explosive and
ignorant and I came
to love,
to love them all
and that’s what I
write about.
The most harrowing part of the collection are Robinson’s several portraits of young and vulnerable woman who have fallen prey to drugs, mental illness and sexual predators. Highly memorable are “Broken Eyes”, “The Fuck-Up Again”, “If Not Earlier”, “So Silently”, “Like Starving Rats”, “Bruised And Cracked”, “The Old Friend” and “You Know Her.” The poems are gritty and evoke a sense of hopelessness in the reader as you sense Robinson’s frustration in not being able to help these women.
Some of the poems in the collection probably have been inspired by Robinson’s work as a housing officer. The most direct reference to this is in the poem “The Hollow People” in which he writes, “A large proportion of my work/ is listening to people…to hear words that are the lives/ of the fucked-up and lonely.” He understands and empathises with his clients because he has been in similar situations to them:
and I am each and
everyone one of them, I
hear and speak their
language, know of their
needs and weaknesses
I have come through it and
now hold the hands of
those who didn’t.
In “So Silently” the speaker, presumably Robinson, has to urgently house a woman who has just been released from a psychiatric hospital. He raises a fist to the predators and bean counters out there: “25 years old and at the mercy/ of a cold and defensive/ authority that will decide/ whether she’ll have a roof/ over her head tonight, out/ of street danger and the/ coldness of October.”
Robinson says about his important work: “For the past 3 decades I have worked as a housing officer: working with the most vulnerable, dangerous, crazed, beautiful, intelligent, homeless, violent, thankful, warm, people of my local community: and without a doubt these people are the inspiration for some of my work: I am fortunate to meet some beautiful souls but every day I will hear of some tragedy: a suicide/serious self harm/ families becoming homeless/extreme poverty/ some poor fucker getting a severe beating: although I enjoy the job as with most things it’s the politics and their budgets that fuck things up and makes life even tougher with every screw turned, particularly for those at the bottom looking up.”
In Robinson’s world, lessons are rarely learnt, people continue to fuck-up, take drugs, drink themselves blind- although often in full knowledge of the negative consequences of what they are doing. Addiction, genetics, gender, poverty, family dysfunction, peer pressure and many other variables are all ingredients which turn to shit of all rational government attempts to control and straighten out human behaviour.
Robinson consistently explores the life of people on the margins and their often inevitable plunge into madness, suicide, prostitution, drug use, sexual abuse- and other aberrant behaviours. It is very difficult to break this chain and he offers us no solutions- he is merely recording what he has seen and heard over decades.
The poem “The Clothing” is highly effective in depicting the emptiness which comes with sudden loss. The bagging of the woman’s clothing is sharply contrasted with her love for clothing. This is not a cautionary tale on why people shouldn’t take drugs but rather a sad comment on a vibrant life brutally and prematurely taken.
THE CLOTHING
She loved clothes and would
spend a great deal of money
and time with this;
she also loved drugs,
unlike her particular
choice of clothing, she
wasn’t fussy and would
swallow, snort, smoke or
shoot whatever was on
offer; her looks were
Italian pretty, her
character warm and
charming, kindly and
she prostituted herself
for clothes and drugs;
it took a full day’s work
to bag up her clothing;
5 dozen huge plastic
sacks, most of which
she had never worn,
bought on impulse, a
lust to own;
charity shops collected,
soon other young
women would be
buying and wearing
these things and I’d
hope she be
happy with this.
There is an underlying energy and optimism in Robinson’s writing which occasionally lifts Hang in There above the gloom. There are moments of humour or humility or quiet moments of enjoying simple pleasures- like getting high or writing poetry- which make this senseless wild beast worth living. Poems like
“The Flick of a Switch”, “Ticking Calendar” affirm life from the highest rafters. In “To Begin With” Robinson writes how a granddaughter of a totally messed-up family has broken the chains of her past and now “has a successful/ business and she is/ beautifully stunning,/ living clear of her/ mother’s journey.”
My favourite image of the collection is from the poem “1960’s Pop Culture And Stravinsky.” In the poem the speaker walks out of his office at midday, gets high and writes:
I saw my wife pull up in her
car; a pop song from the 1960’s
came over the radio and I
began dancing in the kitchen,
my wife came in, she didn’t
take off her coat but embraced
me and we danced and held
each other
The front and back cover are by the artist and poet Henry Grier Stanton. The front cover depicts a couple embracing under an archway. Robinson says of the cover, “Henry G Stanton is not only a true quality poet but he is also an exceptional artist: I loved the cover right-off: a couple entwined, ghostly: is this their first embrace or their last? Where do the archway’s lead to? Heaven or hell? I see and feel something different every time I look at the painting, which is hanging in my home: it has energy with the colours that move like a fine mist and this applies to the portrait.”
John D. Robinson is an important underground poet totally worth turning your attention to. Although Bukowski & others may have been an initial inspiration, Robinson has now found his own voice and there is a lot to admire about him – the honesty of his writing, his embrace of the alternative small publishing community, his resilience in surviving his past errors and in getting his words out to us.
Robinson has now left his crazy past behind. He says: “These days I open up a bottle of wine about 9 pm when I settle down with pen and pad and start to scribble: A beautiful, strong and intelligent lady saved my ass: love saved my ass: my daughter saved my ass, my grandchildren saved my ass. Poetry saved my ass and god damn it, my cats saved my ass: Love: I am friends with my demons now: it took a while and I’ve always got to be alert.”
Signed copies of the book (limited edition of 100) are available through Raw Art Review: https://therawartreview.com/books-for-sale/or direct from John D. Robinson: johndrobinson@yahoo.co.uk
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN D. ROBINSON 20 JULY 2019
How was the process of getting your collection Hang in There published through the American based Uncollected Press?
Henry Stanton had read some of my work in ‘Outlaw Poetry’ and then read some more works online and then purchased a couple of my chapbooks: he got in touch and asked for some poems to feature in his online literary and arts publication ‘Raw Arts Review’: Following this Hank then approached for some poems for a book and this full length collection is the result:
Can you explain why you called the book Hang in There?
Hank Stanton came up with this title: It hit me right off: isn’t that what we’re all doing? Hanging in there for something, anything, anyone:
Is your poetry essentially confessional and based on real events? What are some of your influences in developing this narrative, first person style?
I guess it is mostly confessional and for sure is based on true events that I have been witnessed to, experienced or they are stories given by the people I meet, sometimes only very briefly, but sometimes that is enough to sense the sorrow or the joy and I try and capture this with a straight forward direct delivery, I think any other approach would not possibly have the resonation, the clarity and depth that I am reaching for:
In the poem “The Code & Honour” you write “I know low-life/I’ve lived it, breathed/ it: cheated, robbed,/ lied and betrayed/ most and myself”. Can you describe this period in your life. How old were you? How were you able to break free of this spiral downwards of alcohol and drugs?
On my father’s side, I come from a long and staggering line of drunkards: alcohol became a part of my life very early on, drugs came a little later: I was an alcoholic by the time I was 17 or 18: I drifted, never had any ambitions of any kind, just wasn’t interested in anything else except getting drunk and high: Hash has been forever present: speed, cocaine, amphetamines were party pieces : Heroin scared me, I had lost half dozen friend’s to heroin: Codeine: Valium or any ‘downers’ was my choice;: I am prescribed pain relief medication these days for a crumbling spinal disc: I do not drink during the day nowadays, the pain relief is a good deterrent not to consume alcohol during the day: : In my 20 and 30’s I’d be drunk and stoned around the clock: These days I open up a bottle of wine about 9 pm when I settle down with pen and pad and start to scribble: A beautiful, strong and intelligent lady saved my ass: love saved my ass: my daughter saved my ass, my grandchildren saved my ass. Poetry saved my ass and god damn it , my cats saved my ass: Love: I am friends with my demons now: it took a while and I’ve always got to be alert:
In “The Hollow People” you write that “A large proportion of my work/ is listening to people…to hear words that are the lives/ of the fucked-up and lonely.” What is your job and is it the inspiration for many of your poems in the collection?
For the past 3 decades I have worked as a housing officer: working with the most vulnerable, dangerous, crazed, beautiful, intelligent, homeless, violent, thankful, warm, people of my local community: and without a doubt these people are the inspiration for some of my work: I am fortunate to meet some beautiful souls but every day I will hear of some tragedy: a suicide/serious self harm/ families becoming homeless/extreme poverty/ some poor fucker getting a severe beating: : although I enjoy the job as with most things it’s the politics and their budgets that fuck things up and makes life even tougher with every screw turned, particularly for those at the bottom looking up:
You first published poetry as a young man but according to your publishing credits you didn’t start putting out books until 2016. Is this accurate? If so, why the long delay?
I was writing gibberish: bullshit: as Dan Fante said (or something like) ‘Keep writing, no matter what, write that shit down, keep writing, write yourself through the shit and you’ll find a way that is comfortable’: I had written nothing that was worthwhile for publication, the odd poem perhaps: I had initially written in the direct narrative but had nothing of note to capture back then: I then started working on ‘When You Hear The Bell, There’s Nowhere To Hide’ I was in my early 50’s and had a lifetime as it were to look back over and write about and I knew I had found my way back home after taking the longest route and it feels good to be home:
In “The Longest Route” you write “I took the longest,/ the hardest and/ toughest route/ and that’s what I/ write about”. You say nothing was planned- “shit just happened”. What were the circumstances which influenced you to write about some of your “brutal and harrowing” experiences.
I think I may have answered this above: people inspire me: be it the beauty and love, the madness , the energy, the daring, the stepping out of the norm people: I feel at ease with these people , a lot more than being in the company of a bunch of faceless suits in an artificial office: life is on the streets, my streets, your streets, all over the globe:
The cover and back art is created by Henry Grier Stanton. The cover illustration appears to be of a man and woman giving solace to each other under an archway. What’s the story behind this cover?
Henry G Stanton is not only a true quality poet but he is also an exceptional artist: I loved the cover right-off: a couple entwined, ghostly: is this their first embrace or their last? Where do the archway’s lead to? Heaven or hell? I see and feel something different every time I look at the painting, which is hanging in my home: it has energy with the colours that move like a fine mist and this applies to the portrait (which is also hanging in my hallway): I am hoping to publish a chapbook of Hank’s artwork in the future:
How has the reception of your work gone so far?
I think the reception has been very positive so far: I gave a reading some weeks back in a local bookstore and received a good reception and sold some books: I am planning to visit the States to meet with Hank and do a micro-reading tour: the book has received some very positive reviews: I am so pleased with this book: the layout and format by Hank works well:
I know you are a very busy man- what are some of your upcoming projects?
My chapbook ‘Singing Aria’s’ will be published by UK Analog Submission Press on the 31stof July: 20 pages of recent unpublished poetry appearing in print for the first time: print run of 25 copies: pre-orders are welcomed, please go to the Analog Submission Press for details of how to purchase;
In September 2019: Alien Buddha Press will be releasing my book: ‘ A Hash Smoking, Codeine Swallowing, Wine Drinking Son Of A Bitch’ : about 130 pages of old and new poems:
As Holy&intoxicated Publications I will continue to publish quality limited edition’s chapbooks of poetry: forthcoming are : George Anderson: Jake St. John: Tohm Bakeleas: Mendes Biondo: Catfish McDaris: Gwil James Thomas: Scott Wozniak to name just a few:
Who knows then?
That’s for your time, John!
Thank you for everything! Take care. Hope to hear back from you.
Further Resources
Eight further poems from Hang in Therecan be found in a feature on John D. Robinson in Raw Art Review:
Interview of Robinson by Wombwell Rainbow: https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/11/04/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-john-d-robinson/
Interview of Robinson by North of Oxford: https://northofoxford.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/an-interview-with-poet-john-d-robinson/
Chapbooks by John D. Robinson
Cowboy Hats & Railways (Scars Press 2016) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1537539019/ref=x_gr_w_bb_sout?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_sout-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1537539019&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2
When You Hear The Bell, There’s Nowhere To Hide (Holy&intoxicated Publications 2016)
https://www.amazon.com/When-Hear-Bell-Theres-Nowhere/dp/0993206808
An Outlaw In The Making (Scars Publications 2017)
https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Making-John-D-Robinson/dp/1981468188
These Poems Stole Your Lunch Money with Bradley Mason Hamlin (Holy&intoxicated Publications 2017)
https://www.amazon.com/These-Poems-Stole-Lunch-Money/dp/0993206875
Looking Down Both Barrels with Adrian Manning (Holy&intoxicated Publications 2017)
https://www.amazon.in/Looking-Barrels-Adrian-Manning-Robinson/dp/0993206867
Hitting Home (Iron Lung Press 2018)
https://ironlungpress.bigcartel.com/product/hitting-home-by-john-d-robinson
In Pursuit Of Shadows (Analog Submission Press 2018)
https://www.analogsubmission.com/product/the-pursuit-of-shadows-by-john-d-robinson
In Between The Curves with Charles Joseph (Holy&intoxicated Publications 2018)
https://www.amazon.ca/Between-Curves-Charles-Joseph-Robinson/dp/0993206891
Echoes Of Diablo (Concrete Meat Press 2018)
http://adrianmanning.wixsite.com/concretemeatpress/single-post/2018/08/16/New-Chapbook-by-John-D-Robinson
Too Many Drinks Ago (Paper & Ink Zine Publication 2018)
https://paperandinkzine.bigcartel.com/product/too-many-drinks-ago-by-john-d-robinson
Romance, Renegades & Riots with James Gwill Thomas (Analog Submission Press 2018)
https://www.analogsubmission.com/product/romance-renegades-riots-by-gwil-james-thomas-john-d-robinson
Singing Aria’s (Analog Submission Press, 2019): https://twitter.com/analogsubpress/status/1151177142622834689
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