Ben Robinson | Issue 34
Poetry | The first time I met another person with my name was in junior kindergarten. This other Ben and I would attend the same elementary, middle and high school together.
Excerpt from The Book of Benjamin
© 2023 Excerpt from The Book of Benjamin by Ben Robinson published with permission of Palimpsest Press.
Ben Robinson is a poet, musician and librarian. His first book, The Book of Benjamin, an essay on naming, birth and grief was published by Palimpsest Press in 2023. His poetry collection, As Is, is forthcoming from ARP Books. He has only ever lived in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.
The Book of Benjamin by Ben Robinson Palimpsest Press, 2023
Like an obsessive baby name book with only one entry, The Book of Benjamin establishes links between identity, birth, and grief. Braiding the story of his stillborn sister with the Biblical account of Benjamin to explore how names and their etymologies might shape our self-understanding, Benjamin Robinson resists the individual focus of the memoir, while investigating new forms of masculinity. The Book of Benjamin is the testament of both a son and a father, contrasting genealogy with larger communal narratives.
Praise for The Book of Benjamin:
“Just how many Benjamin Robinsons are there? Actually, how many of any of us are there and how does our own name name us? With thoughtful, tender, wry intelligence, open to the strange attractors of names and naming, of language and self, of culture, family and story, The Book of Benjamin is as simple and complex as a name, as revealing, telling and enticing. I could call Benjamin Robinson every name in the book and, you name it, it’d all be high praise.”—Gary Barwin, author of The Most Charming Creatures
“I love The Book of Benjamin‘s quiet upheaval of our beliefs around names as linguistic markers of selves and others. In distilled language, Robinson has threaded his profound questions through tender, funny, and devastating family memories that gather until the fabric is turbulent with meanings.”—Sadiqa de Meijer, author of alfabet/alphabet
Support Send My Love to Anyone
Support Send My Love to Anyone by signing up for a monthly or yearly subscription, liking this post, or sharing it!
Big heartfelt thanks to all of the subscribers and contributors who make this project possible!
Connect
Bluesky | Instagram | Archive | Contributors | Subscribe | About SMLTA