Cara Waterfall for Event Magazine

“In Ben Robinson’s As Is, intertextuality also serves as a powerful tool, weaving together personal narrative and historical documentation, including public execution documents and prehistorical elements, to examine the colonial history of Hamilton, ON. In the book’s opening lines, the Hamilton resident uses a treaty to illustrate the interplay between colonial documentation and Indigenous presence. The boundary is both history and metaphor, setting up his examination of how historical complexities echo in contemporary life.”

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Kirby for The Fiddlehead

“All this time I thought Ben Robinson’s first full-length The Book of Benjamin (Palimpsest Press, 2023) was/is a poetry collection. I suppose it falls under that new highfalutin’ all the rage genre “the hybrid” — text poems with intermittent photos, prose, striking in effect as well as on the page — another demonstration of what poetry can do. Bend.

I mention this, because his newest, As Is, is being touted here as his debut poetry collection. Like its earlier companion piece, there’s a story/stories to be told of persons, and place, commonly referred to as histories. And while there are facts galore, I wouldn’t call this as in any way resembling a history “lesson” — Robinson wisely doesn’t go over that cliff. It’s in his tellings, the discoveries of which propel our curiosities to hop in the passenger seat as reader.”

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