Roger Robinson (poet)

Roger Robinson is an award-winning writer, musician and performer who lives between England and Trinidad. He describes himself as "a British resident with a Trini sensibility". He was chosen by arts organisation Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced black-British writing over the past 50 years. He was a spoken-word performer in London in the early 1990s, before branching out to start performing poetry with bands he would meet, including Techno Animal, Flytronix, The Bugz, Attica Blues and Speeka. Robinson is the lead vocalist for musical crossover project King Midas Sound, whose critically acclaimed debut album Waiting for You was released on Hyperdub Records, becoming number 10 in the top 50 releases of 2009 in Wire Magazine.

Robinson was born in Hackney, London, and at the age of four went with his parents to live in Trinidad, returning to England when he was 19 in the 1980s.

Robinson has toured extensively with the British Council, travelling to Vietnam, the Philippines, Argentina, Bulgaria, Greece, India, the Czech Republic and Mozambique, among other places. As well as performing, he has led workshops and lectured on poetry and performance. His one-man shows The Shadow Boxer, Letter from My Father's Brother and Prohibition all premiered at the British Festival of Visual Theatre at Battersea Arts Centre. Until 2000, Robinson was programme co-ordinator of the performance poetry organisation Apples and Snakes. In 1999 he was one of 30 poets chosen for the New Generation Poets collection at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Commissions he has received include from Theatre Royal Stratford East, the National Trust, London Open House, the National Portrait Gallery, LIFT and the Tate. His workshops have been a part of a shortlist for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries and were also a part of the Webby Award-winning Barbican Centre's Can I Have A Word.

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