Based
on her experiences in New Delhi, India, The Kimnama is a "masala"
of adventure, history, and street culture.
The
Kimnama is available for $12 from VRZHU
Press.
"Good poems love to travel. Conceive a new passage to India,
immersion in its tints, sounds, and scents. Sight the Buddha’s
very own neighborhood or move in rivers of traffic where time
stops. Now for the price of lunch, The Kimnama (Vrzhu
Press) by Kim Roberts transports us swiftly to India where...gentle
lines give us a sense of dream places that wake us to marvels.
Lapidary verses vary with brisk evocation of streets, shops,
and voices. Roberts devotes her lean book to vast India not
only from her vantage point as traveler but from the eyes, ears,
and tongues of Indians; their timeless spirit shines despite
imperial edicts or raids by sacred cows."
Ethan
Fischer , Montserrat Review
"In
the lines of this book-length poem, Kim Roberts distills for
us the essence of India. Braiding past and present with sensual
detail, she summons up the contrasts—houses on a narrow
dirt lane sharing the wall of Muhammadpur's tomb, men in dhotis
squatting 'like giant grasshoppers' near 'a chandelier vendor/his
wares hanging from a tree//so the cut glass shimmered/where
the sun/filtered through the dusty leaves,' her observations
of the outer world complemented by inner realizations arrived
at organically."
Cheryl
Snell , Rattle
"The
language throughout is elegant and precise, and the short swinging
lines reinforce the idea of passage, for me. Musical repetitions,
the use of opposites, and the theme of connection, recall Whitman—especially
'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry' or 'Prayer to Columbus.'”
The
Alsop Review
"...this
work makes the reader viscerally smell, hear, touch and see
the streets, mosques, gods, vehicles, shopping malls and slums
of New Delhi."
Kathi
Wolfe, Scene4 Magazine
THE WISHBONE GALAXY
Washington Writers' Publishing House, 1994
Out of Print Read sample poems
"This
promising first book offers an eccentric commentary on love,
sex and family. Roberts has a dexterous poetic voice, one that
either tells a story or, better yet, disappears behind the story,
allowing you to enter it. Roberts also has a keen ability to
spot the perfect metaphor...Roberts lets her cadenced poetic
voice carry the poem, allowing it to find its own language and
story line. These poems comprise the lucky side of the wishbone."
Publishers' Weekly, June 1994
"This
uncommonly original and spirited book of poems is as bountiful
as the universe itself. It is divided into three diverse sections,
each of which bristles with a kind of glorious energy...There
is a delightfully subversive list quality to the poems "Imagine
This" and "Darwin in Reverse," like layers being
delicately but deliberately peeled away. The mother in "Mother"
is a female horseshoe crab and a sharp metaphor at that. While
the daughter in "Daughter" comes face to face with
the real father who failed her and the dream father she created
on the page...All in all, this book is an astronomical debut.
Next time you look up at the stars, the one shining brightest
might be a poet named Kim Roberts."
Letter Ex: Chicago's Poetry Newsmagazine, Gregg
Shapiro, December 1994
"The
Wishbone Galaxy is one of the best first books in my lifetime.
I admire these poems' tenacious tactile qualities, their skillfully
concealed craft, their density and intensity. Moving, passionate,
insightful, these wonderful evocations of Eros should be appreciated
by anyone interested and who isnt in the
pressure of one body against another. These brilliant poems
offer a constellation of pleasures."
Bill Knott
Editor
BELTWAY
POETRY QUARTERLY
Online Literary Journal and
Resource Bank
January 2000 - present
DELAWARE
POETRY REVIEW Co-edited with: Michael Blaine, John Elsberg, Dennis Forney,
H.A. Maxon, & Richard Peabody.
July
2007 - Present
LEE
HIGHWAY:
BEYOND PAVEMENT
Limited Edition Artists Book, 2000
Out of Print
Collaborative project of eight printmakers and four poets (John
Elsberg, Carol Heller Nation, M.A. Schaffner, and Hilary Tham)
Read the Editor's
Afterword