James Robison

You're too good, friend. Was looking at those new Pushcart stories the other day and was so pleased to see your name there. Proud to be one of your goslings. Thanks for the encouragement.

We are immensely flattered by your comment, and we thank you for it.

Greetings, Professor Robison, with thanks for your exceedingly generous nods for "Tomorrows Never Written . . .". In terms of audibility and reciprocity I promise to return to "The Metamorphosis" and "A Hunger Artist" ASAP. Salutations and benedictions, from s

:) Thank you again :) I think we're all mentally fucked up.

Thank you James for joining in the further adventures of "the search." I am flattered by the Pynchon reference. I will begin reading Gravity's Rainbow this week!

I went to your page and I thoroughly enjoyed your MARS piece. Charlie and Denise reminded me of Albee's George and Martha. I love the sound and thought of dragonfly's churning up snow dervishes! Wonderful imagery!

I'm working on BLOCKED, Chapter 3 right now which is a dialogic epistolary (I'm told) and as a photographer, and not a writer, I am struggling with it. Your talents would be better suited to the feelings I'm trying to get across.

Thanks again for commenting on "The Search for Pastina Continues"

Jim, thanks for the thumbs up for "Bare Ruined Palace"!

Thanks, James for thr "faverooola" on "A Good Man Deserves A Good Woman"...I feel warm and happy now.

Thanks so very much, James, for your extra-generous to "My Almost Clash with The Rolling Stones" memoir piece!

Thanks, James, for reading 'Ray's People...' Yes, this is the most poignant 'holiday' of the year for me. For many others, sadly, mattress sales....

Thanks for the thoughtful comment on '77 Words About Nothing (5-24-2012)'. I've often questioned the titles of those pieces but always resort back to the Nothing they're actually about. Whether Nothing is a person, a state of mind, or the nothing that came from that particular moment in time-it's still...Nothing.

Thanks for your important comment on the "Pain" poem, Jim, but, please, no pressure to comment, no pressure to comment profoundly, no anxiety of appreciation. No anxiety or obligation of any kind! There's enough pain in the world as is. I don't want to add any new kinds! But thank you for the pains you took!

Thanks, Jim, for liking and posting a comment about the Esenin/Mayakovsky poem. Glad you promoted Night Wraps the Sky. Important book.

thank you. I love to be as nuts as this and this is the only legal way.

Thanks ever so for reading "Never Enough".

James, your kind comments on "Immiscibility" knock my lil' socks off. You've summarized perfectly the whole point of the piece, meaning you totoally got it, meaning it works. Can't tell you how much I appreciate your taking the time to read and comment. There's hope for me yet!

Thanks for faving "Eleutheria," Jim. POINTED SENTENCES in the mail to you.

Thanks so much for liking -- and faving -- "Eidetic", James!

Jim, thanks for reading 'Copper', and for your comment and fave. Much appreciated!

Very much appreciate your read and response to "Swimming Lessons." Thank you--

James, thank you for sharing my eyes on "Crown-of-thorns". A great feeling when someone "gets it".

Jim thank you for the great thing you said about my story. when you come along and say something like that, the times you have, things which feels impossible to hear from a writer I admire so much, it is a luxury cruise.

Dear James, thank you for your comment on "For Carol". I appreciate it and I hope you go well into that New Year. Cheers from Berlin.

You always see things in my poems that I don't. Thanks for the star and for following the wasp in "Getting Home Alive."

Thanks for commenting on "Reading Mary Oliver." If I weren't reasonably content and unreasonably stuck in my own life, her's, and especially her writing, would have been my next choice. Well, maybe Celine Dion, but that's a whole other story.

I'm in awe of your talent. How did you learn? Were you born with it? How much do you read? What do you read? I NEED to know how to get better. Such an honor to read your work.

Glad you liked the "Taut" poem, and thank you for your comment and fave, but, seriously, why can't a title make a joke? I think of Donald Barthelme's "Robert Kennedy Saved From Drowning." I love that witty title and clever allusion to Jean Renoir. Besides the Euclid poem, many of my titles are puns--"Mussel Memory," "Knot Eye," "Drinking an Orange Julius While Listening to Pink Floyd," "Coleridge on Urine," "God's Vial," and "Truman Compote" among them. Some of my new poems too: "Joan of Dark," "Low Fat Yoga," "Et Tu, Beaute," "Nan Sequiter." What's your sense of the relationship between title and piece?

Thanks, Jim!

Jim,it is my understanding, if you suffer from anhedonia you can distinguish pretty words from ugly words through past knowledge, but you would not have the capacity to experience or feel the prettiness or the ugliness of the word or what it described. . . . . does that make sense?

Like your comment on "Black Ice," Jim. Thanks for the fave!

thank you, james, for commenting on "under the apple tree". this story will have to be written again and again until the end of time or until the end of fictionaut, whatever comes first.

Your comment on "Getting Godless" made me laugh out loud. Thanks, Jim!

your comments on my story can pretty much make the whole world better.

Jim thanks so much for your generous comments on my story Idiotsky. I had a blast writing it, am a big Chekhov fan, did 3 Chekhov plays as an actor, so it gave me a bit of a leg up on the language.

Jim, thank you for your comment on "Tada". I can't really thank you enough. There is no way to do so. I'm so glad you liked it and knowing that makes me happy in a bright blue dragonfly kind of way (I loved them when I was a kid). So, in a buzzy, kind of fluttery way. It's hard to explain properly how happy your comment made me.

Jim, yep, I take in surrounding energy like a sponge. Thanks so much for liking "body"

Your comment on "I Am Not a Corpse" is truer than you know. Thank you, Jim, for reading so incisively.

jim,

i am so thankful you read my work--

speaking of which--i have that memoir first chapter ready for a look? if ever you have a chance (oh, it's a lot to ask! fifty pages! )

g

Thanks, thanks, thanks, James, for your always so wonderfully encouraging feedback!

James, great to hear from you. Thanks for reading and commenting on "Fate". It's a sliver of a section from my Nouveau Roman which I'd written months ago but buried as I felt it may have been a bit too much. Your initial commentary on those first chapters so motivated me to keep moving forward with this piece and really pushed me to further explore N.R. Alas, my many, many thanks. Best, I.

James, wow, thanks so much for your extremely kind words for "Snow." Appreciate it.

hi - love that comment - that policeman's guilty laughter is ringing in my ears...thank you.

Just read your poem 'For the Film New Orleans Mon Amour' in Blue Fifth Review. Think it's wonderful. Was intrigued to read what inspired it. The idea of the hurt film and its emaciated budget says it all. Sometimes you just can't win... sorry this happened.

Thank you so much for your comment on my shrink story. Wow! A three? Now, that's a real compliment! (In real life I was always better at rebounding that shooting.)

re: "Epithalamion."
"its concision is tonic"--such a great insight. Yes, and that's Pope also. His concision is tonic.
"The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife,
To help me through this long disease, my life"
Thanks for commenting, though what you consistently write is well beyond mere commenting.

I love that you get my jokes! Thanks for commenting on "Black Squirrel Poem."

Thanks for the kind words and the fave on Telephone! I appreciate the read.

Your comment on "Self Alaska," is an axe to the frozen sea that is that poem. Thank you. You juggle insights as deftly as a magician uncovers doves. You are a window maker.

Hi James, thanks again for your "Godot" comments.

I'll check out Michael Almereyda's book. Thanks for rec and fav on "Something, He Wrote"!

Thanks, James, for your comments on "Full Stop! Punctuation Police!" - George

Hello James--

Your commentary on my piece affirmed what I have been sensing, that I am headed in the right direction. Thanks so much. I needed a bit of encouragement for this very personal story.

Best,
Isabell

No confusion. No disagreement either!

James,

Thank you for reading, thoughtfully commenting on, and faving so many of my poems. Feels like my birthday!

(We share major enthusiasm for Robbe Grillet, Machado de Assis, I.B. Singer, Cabrera-Infante, Kawabata, Ozick, not to mention Beckett, Borges, Joyce, T. Wolfe, etc.)

James, thank you for that fantastic comment on my story. Means so much, it really does.

No worries. Fictionaut used to take up too much of my time (too many good stories to read) so I've limited myself to two-three short shorts a day and two longer stories a week.

Well, you are just way too kind. Thanks so much for reading and commenting on "Watermelon" Jim. I can't wait to read your novel.

You have a great birthday!

Thanks again James, for the comment on "Private Death in Venice" - I have four more legs of the trip besides the two posted, but they need touching up and too much of Eddie's mind in a short period can be hazardous to one's insanity.

I noticed you cropped out the numbers from below the mug shot you have here.

James - thanks for reading Poetipedia and the appreciative comment. Can't take all the credit, it was a reworking of a standard Wiki entry, and the lines you mentioned a flip-flop on Keat's entry. As for your "the cloud line" - not all that disruptive, just missed a beat or two in MY cadence as I read it aloud.

(the boy + the roach = one and the same raw urge). Jim, thank you for this insight which never occurred to me

James, your comments about "Mona" are too kind. My idols when I wrote this were Hemingway and Carver. (The Lish version of the latter.) For some reason, I still like the story even though it is an antique.

Hi James, and thank you for reading and commenting on my story!

thank you for your kind comment on "Four Teenagers...". The image, if you care, is at http://bit.ly/1qcDRX. i think your inference is spot on: story can (should?) convey more than image. godard is a godsend but (not sharing your cultural sphere) i had to look up dangerfield: that man deserves respect!

geez, jim, thanks for reading february, first--and the helpful comments.

snowed most of the day here, guess that's why--then i went to see jeff bridges in crazy heart. choked in art. came out and it was seven degrees.

so, florida. cheers/--g

Ha (in a good way), I forget how you may have interacted directly with folks like Roger Angell. Keep on truckin'.

James,
Thanks for your comments on my jumpers story. Very kind, very helpful. How apt your observation about the narrator balanced on a rail!

Jim:

Having been recently bachelorized again, the story had a particular acuity for me. I should have said also that the title is perfect in its simultaneous ambiguity and complete (shall we say) linear clarity.

Good stuff. And, it seems to me, just a little bit of a departure for you in the abundance of description. But of course that's part of the point.

Thanks, a boatload, for complimenting my interviews and JMWW...beyond wonderful to read that. I majored in Journalism and creative writing and have always thought it would be cool to merge the two. I really love interviewing people and am hoping to improve on my skills while still having fun. Incidentally, I had to post this comment from Joseph Reed concerning how editing for Caketrain affects his writing. I read it on htmlgiant last year when I was subbing/writing non-stop and I've thought about it off and on since: "I used to write before I became an editor, but I don’t anymore. Not only does the journal take the majority of my free time—basically evenings and weekends, as my days are occupied in the development office of a much larger nonprofit—but also, seeing as much of what our peers are working on in a given year as we do, it becomes increasingly difficult to know what to add to that discussion. I can’t imagine myself producing anything that satisfies me the way a n

My, my, my, James. You paid me the most excellent compliment, and I'm blushing. Thank you. S&M really *is* why we write, isn't it? To poke people where it hurts, to make them wince and wriggle? Just a little? Just enough? I am saying yes.

Didn't know that about Brando and Durante. An odd pairing. I guess Mrs. Calabash was a waitress Durante met when he was a young entertainer on the road.

Thanks so much for your comments on "Her Bottom". I think you are dead on right about the searchlight line. It's time to take it out. Very much appreciated!!!!!!!

James, thanks so much for the close read of "What Kind of Person..." I am waiting for these people to figure out what's wrong with my car and it's a dreary place here and your kind words made me smile.

Thank you so much, Mr.Robison. You've been truly kind. Your undeserved attention is now my own private light house, with which I set my sails on as I embark on my writing adventure here on Fictionaut. Again, thank you.

Hi James, wow, many thanks for reading my story and taking time to comment. And what comments. I took out the wink, but needs tooling. David Lodge the best. Have you read his Art of Fiction? I'm putting you on my contact list(when I figure out how to do it) and look forward to reading all your stories

envelopes full of cash, eh? Well, I wouldn't want to break from tradition....
I look forward to reading your work.

Hey! Thanks for your comments on my story. Loved Mars. It is dead-on. Fantastic. I'm jealous!

Robin Reagler said then, "When in doubt, swim." Sometimes swimming, sometimes flying with poets and poetry and poetics since 1996 online. This is the first dynamic internet space I've found devoted to fiction writing. I'm eager for it. It's a privilege to be able to read the teacher at this age at the age you were then.

I keep meaning to write with an invitation to have at anything I post here. I have really enjoyed and benefited from your comments.
You might want to see if you would like to add Jim Lehrer's novel Eureka to your favorites.

Thanks for reading and commenting on my stories, James. "Mars" is an incredible story.

hey jim: thanks for the very kind feedback on "a simple explanation."

i've been meaning to tell you i read "rumors" and really must insist that you post more of your stuff. "mars" is remarkable and your comments are legendary. please let everyone else (and me!) know you better as a writer ...

Thanks for writing luciously about my story. You've made me consider the origins of "waves attacking legs." Another story, that.

Loved the dialogue in your story, and I look forward to reading more.

Hi James, thanks for your words about my work. I'm happy for them. And I've got a copy of your collection, Rumors and Other Stories. I probably never told you how much I love that book. I've had it for a long time, wondering more about who you are. Great to see you here. I'm looking forward to reading more.

James, thank you for reading my work and for taking the time to write comments that make a difference
i wasn't going to post another poem or story until you had posted one, wanted to write and tell you that plan, but instead got a copy of Rumor out from the library. Especially love this:
"That's enough praying, Mother," Ray said. "Get off the line so some other sinners can get through."
a wonderful book of stories. so glad you are here.

James,

I found your generous comment on my story Adults at Home thrilling. Thank you. I'm enjoying, in fact, ALL of your comments on Fictionaut.

Marcy

jim -- thanks so much for your kindness. your words mean a lot. lauren

Hi James, thanks very much for your kind words. Nice to have you on here. "Mars" is REALLY good. Take care, David