Maria Lind reflects on Lisa Robertson's poetry and the humorous pathos of masculinity

Maria Lind recounts an emotional encounter with Lisa Robertson's 2001 poetry collection The Weather, which moved her to tears unexpectedly at an airport. Robertson's work blends deep materialism with eccentric emotions, exploring themes like weather and human scale. The poet has published titles such as Magenta Soul Whip (2005), XEclogue (1993), and Debbie: An Epic (1997), and teaches writing at art schools. In a Bomb magazine conversation with Etel Adnan, Robertson and Adnan discuss love, philosophy, and poetry as simultaneous thinking and feeling. Lind also discovers Robertson's 2006 book The Men – A Lyric Book, which offers a precise dissection of contemporary men, shifting her response from crying to laughter. Robertson's practice includes urban deliberations centered on Vancouver, founding an 'office for soft architecture,' and experimenting with pink-lensed glasses. The article originally appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of ArtReview.