Canadian Poets Series #37 : Ben Robinson

Ben Robinson is a poet, musician, and librarian. His poems have appeared in various publications including The Malahat Review, Humber Literary Review, etcetera, and The Literary Review of Canada. They have also been anthologized in On Occasion: Poems for the People (Coach House Books, 2026) and Best Canadian Poetry 2027 (Biblioasis, 2026). His essays and interviews have been published by the Hamilton Review of Books, The Temz Review, Ex-Puritan, and Arc Poetry. He has published eleven chapbooks, including 2026's [A] Sensitive Man (Knife Fork Book), Low Vacancy which won the John Lent Poetry/Prose Award from Kalamalka Press in 2020, and Between the Lakes Vol. 1 (above/ground press, 2023) which was long-listed for The Nelson Ball Prize. 

In 2018, he received Hamilton Arts Award in the Emerging writer category. Since 2020, he has received grants and residencies from the City of Hamilton, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. His most recent book publication, As Is [see reviews by Kirby in The Fiddlehead, Cara Waterfall for EVENT, and rob mclennan], is a poetry collection from ARP Books which uses local history and mapping as modes of investigating his relationship to Hamilton, Ontario, and was longlisted for the Nelson Ball Prize, shortlisted for the Hamilton Literary Award for Poetry, and won the Kerry Schooley Book Award. In 2023, Palimpsest Press published his first trade book, The Book of Benjamin [see reviews by Sarah O'Connor, Jaclyn Desforges at Hamilton Review of Books, timothy martin at periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, and rob mclennan at The Woodlot], an experimental memoir investigating names, grief and etymology, and in 2021, The Blasted Tree and Knife Fork Book co-published a limited edition hardcover of his biblical erasure project Without Form. You can find him online at benrobinson.work.