The Untested Hand

by Richard Robbins

New poems of the American West by one of today's current masters.

72 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2008

About the author

Richard Robbins studied with Richard Hugo and Madeline DeFrees at the University of Montana, where he completed his MFA. He has published seven books of poems, most recently The Oratory of All Souls, which Lynx House Press released in 2023. He has received awards from The Loft, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America. From 1986-2014, Robbins directed the Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University Mankato, where he recently retired from the creative writing program.

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robbins takes the reader by the hand and shows an array of eclectic topics that align a natural procession of inner beauty from a seemingly semi-omniscient vantage point, yet while remaining cloaked in the mysterious.
Robbins lines from Fourth -Person Singular are magnificent: "It took four wrecked/deserts west of there, all the tar,/your dying human God, dead hawks,/clouds alive with unreal heat." I marvel at just how even an accomplished poet such as Robbins can create such vivid language.
The poem "Prayer" interweaves the spiritual with Los Angeles. The way Robbins bends the language to suit his ROY G. BIV variety of poems, full of interchanges of details, puts him in the company of Philip Levine--only Robbins has the vastness of the western expanse ingrained in his cuticles. Richard Robbins is the real deal as a poet.