INDIVIDUALS

Individuals (Chax Press, 1988) is a book of 24 poems written 'individually' in the fall of 1986 by Kit Robinson and Lyn Hejinian. I asked Hejinian how this book came to be, and she responded: 


"The Individuals started because I was stuck and wasn’t getting any writing done. I complained, whined, to Kit Robinson about it and he told me he was writing ten lines every morning. So I said, “if I did that, could I mail them to you?” So really I was just leaning on him for support. He had a job in the high-tech world that involved a long commute, and I think I was teaching at New College, which did not involve nearly as many out-of-home hours, so I wrote way more than he did ultimately. So mine became The Cell, and Kit’s was scattered through other works. More than anyone I can think of, Kit has used the workplace as completely acceptable material for composition. He established a non-separation, and there could have been a risk, but he never disguised his poetic identity at his workplace, and his colleagues like that. Charles Alexander came up with a design, and figured out a way for our lines to play off each other to create new configurations, mixing and matching."

KS