Love Poem for Santa Cruz
July 8-15, Santa Cruz Weekly runs "Love Poem - Ode to Santa Cruz," inspired by Garrison Keillor's recent visit and challenge to locals to come up with a poem that does justice to this amazing place. Here's my little offering...
Santa Cruz poet Robert Sward pens an homage to his adopted home.
Ode to Santa Cruz
--For Sandy Lydon
You want a sunrise? asks the poet,
I'll give you a sunrise. Eggplant cirrus clouds,
pinky smoky blue and gray,
pink, moss pink, pink nether flower
sunrise, sunrise
yellow white silicon chip
foghorn, windchime, no-color haze.
Sunrise sunrise
O City of Mystical Arts and Live Soup,
Antique bathhouse, casino
Riva Fish House,
A busload of German tourists
applauding (applaudieren!)
the sunrise.
clam chowder, O scrubbed blue light
melon balls and watermelon shooters,
arcade, pink neon, roller coaster heart-shaped mirror.
KA-BOOM! House begins to dance,
land moves in waves three and four feet high,
weight machines swaying, mirrors rattling,
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 bow and give thanks to the muse,
Santa Cruz, O Santa Cruz!
--Robert Sward
A resident of Santa Cruz since 1985, Robert Sward has taught at Cornell University, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, UCSC and Cabrillo College. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, he was chosen by Lucille Clifton to receive a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award.
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
Robert, this is so
Robert, this is so beautiful. I adore the language, the colours - the love the poem exudes not only for a place but for life...Mp
Books we spoke about
Mary,
Books on their way. Thank you for asking...
rs
Robert, I can't wait. Thank
Robert, I can't wait. Thank you so much. Will be in touch. All the best, Mp