Poetry isn’t very funny. It’s seldom stupid and it doesn’t laugh at itself very much. For the most part I feel like I am in church when I read it, but in Who Will Pay The Royalties For the Voices in My Head poet and small press editor, Christopher Robin attempts to change all that. He writes poetry that is at once funny, filled with pathos, irreverent, stupid, ridiculous and heartfelt.

Who Will Pay The Royalties For the Voices In My Head is Robin’s first book of poetry. In it he chronicles a litany of sufferings and transforms them into joy such as, “ORDINARY”: “Taking the bus to community college / to compete / with the other disabled / for attention – // They used to watch me; / when I was in my early twenties – // I’d have brightly colored Mohawks / and wild hippie clothes; / carrying a bedroll - // It’s so nice to be / 28 and ordinary; / I dress like a man now / and carry a loaded / pencil sharpener.”

Most of the poems in this collection focus on the period of Robin’s life while he was homeless and dealing with occupational rehab, caseworkers, and down and out jobs. If only half of its content is based on fact, I’d be exhausted, so I asked him how he was doing. He told me, “I’ve been on disability since I was twenty-one years old. I do odd jobs when I can, the odder the better. I’ve been told I have a brain injury, which keeps me from working at McDonalds, or any other meaningful work. I also have carpal tunnel syndrome, and it's really hard to find a job that doesn't involve either my brain or my hands. I suffered a lot in my younger life, living on the streets and being strung out, and poetry came out of it, but I didn’t seek suffering or the low-life in order to make art. It was the other way around. I don’t believe in that. Suffering is really overrated”. He went on to tell me, “I think you only get to the essential humor of life by transcending the profoundly personal, or the sadness of the world, into universal art. We have to laugh to survive it all. The world is so scary and god-awful.”

Robin is the editor of one of the finest and funniest cut-and-paste zines out there. I asked him how he became an editor. “I had a lot of time on my hands, still do, and wanted to communicate with others in the mail-world. I was told I would never work again in 1991, then again in 1998 (when I was also given the name Zen Baby from a very kind neuropsychologist); so I decided the only place for me was the zine world. My mentors are my fellow poets and other obsessed freaks that spend all their time doing things no one in the real world gives a damn about. My mother was also a great influence on me. I admire how she devours books, plays the violin, lives with a 300 pound pig, doesn’t give a damn and doesn’t own a TV. Other influences are: The Weekly World News, Church of the Subgenius, Timothy Leary, John Waters, Granpa Stuped comics, Robot Chicken cartoons, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Morrisey, and Marshall McLuhan.”

He extols the saving grace he has found in poetry in, “MUSE”: “When I drove drunk / through Flagstaff / wishing to be caught / or comforted / strong armed in hospitals / exiled in small towns / accused and denied / struggling to write on the underside / of a bridge wall / no light or paper / When I was geeken’ in the Atlanta projects / sorely not missed / in motels / When I was strapped down / force fed panic vitamins / or dreaming with the hallucinogenic / cough-syrup-sun underneath / a happy jet lag / lobotomized with cable / or meditating on Gita / over the river - // She was always there.” And describes his life in, “CHRIS’S LIFE”: “Walking past / the lesbian café / after job / raking leaves / with dog shit / on my shoes / carrying / a huge painting of / clowns.”