GULL, CLAM—WHAM - from a work in progress (chapbook)
Poet in residence for four years, 1969-1972, at the University of Victoria. Wow! Talk about not fitting in… I’d given a series of readings in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia thanks to poet William Stafford and somehow got offered a job at the University of Victoria. It took UVic four years to find my teaching 'controversial' (held creative writing classes at my home) and poetry 'incomprehensible' which, at that time, some of it was.
Anyway, spent part of one summer living on a house boat on Lasqueti Island, British Columbia, dining entirely on locally grown food, including fresh-caught clams… didn’t do nothin’ much but read, swim, smoke, and write.
GULL, CLAM—WHAM
Gull flies up in the air
with a clam
drops it on the rocks
crack, bam, wham goes the clam
And, as it doesn’t open,
gull flies up with it again.
And again drops it
on the rocks
plop, bop, and wham again.
This time the clam opens and the gull
feasts. Gull flies up the channel
from west to east,
then back again down the same channel.
Hot summer’s day.
Sun coming down.
A little breeze, out on the rocks
crack, bam, wham
goes the clam
While we in our float house
lean out, looking to the east
and the mud flats filled with clams.
Walking out with shovels, digging
for clams.
Gulls to the east of us
gulls to the west
gulls, gulls, clam bam wham
gulls, gulls, wham bam clam.
---
Reprinted from The Collected Poems (Black Moss Press), copyright (c) 2004, Robert Sward.
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...
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