Robert Sward's Blog
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May.23.2013
Much as I like Redroom.com (and friends I've made!), lately hanging out at Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/robert.sward
Come visit, but yes --
Still a fan, still a fan Redroom.com -
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Mar.25.2013
...from "Ode to Santa Cruz," _New & Selected Poems_. Red Hen Press, 'a sidewalk of broken glass, a street filled with jewels. Loma Prieta, The Earthquake of the Dark Hill, place, this place, always coming back from a disaster. Natural beauty and unnatural events, jazz, blues, canoes, tattoos, I...
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2 comments
Mar.04.2013
Looking forward to the event! report back to follow...AWP Conference
Each year, AWP holds its Annual Conference & Bookfair in a different city to celebrate the authors, teachers, writing programs, literary centers, and independent publishers of that region. The conference typically features 550...
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Feb.28.2013
photo by ©Robert Sward
Leonard Cohen: Various Positions
as interviewed by Robert Sward
This interview took place in Montreal, Quebec - 1984.
INT: Your latest album is called " Various Positions. " Why that title?
LC: When you're gathering songs together, the ones that you have and the...
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1 comment
Feb.11.2013
SHELBY ON ‘THE PURPOSE OF DOGS’
The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.
--Charles Darwin
Shelby the Dog:
Ninety percent of our genetic makeup is the same as yours....
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Feb.09.2013
IN A WORLD OF NO
…all that I cared for was the race of dogs,
that and nothing else… To whom but [dogs]
can one appeal in the wide and empty world?
–Franz Kafka
In a world of No,
dogs are a Yes.
Sixty-eight million dogs in America
and...
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1 comment
Jan.31.2013
First published book, Uncle Dog & Other Poems, Putnam & Co., Ltd., London. And sequence of "dog poems" in latest book, New & Selected Poems, 1957-2011. Now underway: Unleashed: The Dogs in My Life - publishing deal - book due in 2014.
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Jan.27.2013
4. Santa Claus: Santa Cruz
In December, 1985, recently returned to the U.S.
after some years in Canada, a free lance writer
in search of a story, I sought and found
employment as a Rent-a-Santa Claus. Imagine walking
into the local Community Center and suddenly, at the
sight of 400...
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Jan.25.2013
2. Sailor Librarian: San Diego
At 17, I graduated from high school, gave up my job
as soda jerk and joined the U.S. Navy. The Korean War
was underway; my mother had died, and Chicago seemed
an oppressive place to be.
My...
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Jan.25.2013
3. Mr. Amnesia: Cambridge
In 1962, after ten years of writing poetry, my book,
Uncle Dog & Other Poems, was published by Putnam
in England. That was followed by two books from
Cornell University Press, Kissing the Dancer and
Thousand-Year-Old Fiancee. Then in 1966, I...
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Jan.23.2013
FOUR INCARNATIONS
1. Switchblade Poetry: Chicago Style
I began writing poetry in Chicago at age 15, when I
was named corresponding secretary for a gang of
young punks and hoodlums called the Semcoes. A
Social Athletic Club, we met at various locations
two Thursdays a month. My job...
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1 comment
Jan.21.2013
Thought I'd share this review by Philip Fried, editor of The Manhattan Review, New York, NY, Winter 2012-2013.
New & Selected Poems, 1957-present. Red Hen Press, 202 pp. $24.95 (paperback)
"This humorous, thoughtful, and delightful poet expresses a childlike but canny love of dogs, parrots,...
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Jan.21.2013
NIGHTGOWN, WIFE’S GOWN
Where do people go when they go to sleep?
I envy them. I want to go there too.
I am outside of them, married to them.
Nightgown, wife’s gown, women that you look at,
beside them—I knock on their shoulder blades
ask to be let in. It is forbidden.
But you’...
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Jan.20.2013
Special offer to Redroom.com fellow readers and writers...
New & Selected Poems, Red Hen Press, Pasadena, CA, lists book for $24.95.
Special offer to those ordering signed copies directly from author (packing & shipping included) $19.95
Please order from:
Robert Sward, P.O. Box 7062, Santa...
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Jan.19.2013
UNCLE DOG: THE POET AT 9
I did not want to be old Mr.
Garbage man, but uncle dog
who rode sitting beside him.
Uncle dog had always looked
to me to be truck-strong
wise-eyed, a cur-like Ford
Of a dog. I did not want
to be Mr. Garbage man because
all he had was cans to do.
...
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2 comments
These are such, sad, generous poems--peopled with characters it's impossible not to love, especially Robert's podiatrist-Jewish-Rosicrucian father with his wisdom that bridges dualities expounding on the feet and the soul, sex and death, the broken and the whole. In one poem, Robert asserts, In a world of 'No, dogs are a Yes.' And in the world of poetry, this book is a resounding Yes. Read it when you're happy, but especially read it when you're depressed. You'll find yourself joining in with the many dogs in these poems, saying, 'Woof, woof f----in' woof!”
—Poet Ellen Bass
About Robert
Guggenheim Fellow, chosen by Lucille Clifton for a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award, author of more than 20 books, including Four Incarnations (Coffee House Press), Heavenly Sex, God is in the Cracks and The Collected Poems (now in its 2nd printing),...
Connections
Causes Robert Sward Supports
Audubon Society, National Geographic, "Green," the Environment, SPCA...
Robert’s Favorite Books
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Saul Bellow's Adventures of Augie March, Ezra Pound's Make It New, T.S. Eliot's Collected Poems, The Autobiography of Benjamin...
Robert is a fan of
