Robert Sward's Blog
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Sep.02.2009
It seemed an utterly natural thing to do, to be dying of cancer, to have suffered a year or two of agony, and yet to agree to give one last poetry reading. Still, with Mort Marcus you can never be too sure. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the line he managed to do another. And of course...
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Aug.31.2009
My wife and I recently visited poet Roy Mash and his wife in San Rafael, CA. Roy introduced us to his new dog, Watson, a canine rescue animal from a local shelter and told the story of how the poor animal had been denied the health coverage he needed because of a pre-existing condition.
Is it me?...
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Aug.29.2009
Peggy Snider's The Human Spirit is one of the stand-out works from Azul Nursery Art Exhibition earlier this month... stoneware and wood... trusty Kodak DX3600 digital camera for pics, and Day-Timer for note-taking... I'm still a journalist.
Snider's The Human Spirit, it's like looking into someone'...
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Aug.25.2009
Working on a sequence of poems about Santa Cruz. New ones plus recycling a few from the past, for example, "Blackbirds Flying Backwards," written at time of the Oct. 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The following is excerpted from Earthquake Collage, impressions, recollections, news items,...
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Aug.21.2009
Marin Poetry Center. Marin Library. Read with my friend, San Rafael poet Roy Mash. We agree before hand... Roy will introduce and read a poem of mine, while I do the same for him. Roy does more than justice to "Dog With Father, At Their Ease In Heaven" (see below) and produces as well...
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Aug.17.2009
In San Francisco (from Santa Cruz) for the weekend. Sat. night we went looking for a copy of Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, our favorite paper. Wanted to see Entertainment section, what was going to be happening the next day. Saturday night in San Francisco, Union Square, and not one newspaper...
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Aug.10.2009
Esalen Catalog listing for workshop I'll be leading April 9 - April 11. Final (or near-final) version:
If someone asked you to sum up the story of your life in one sentence, what would it be? If you had to choose just half a dozen family photos to tell your life story, what photos would you choose...
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Aug.07.2009
Pandora Radio, Handel's "Water Music," Suite No. 2 for Orchestra. Work in progress, "Unleashed: The Dogs in My Life," Jim Aschbacher's cover art for inspiration. Somethun' new... "Dogs tell the story, in the Garden of Eden, when God threw out Adam, all the other animals...
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Aug.06.2009
Now editing "Local Poets, Local Inspiration" for Santa Cruz Weekly.
"This week we [i.e., Santa Cruz Weekly] introduces a new monthly feature: Santa Cruz poets writing about their home.
"Santa Cruz may well have more accomplished poets per capita than any other city in the...
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Aug.04.2009
Abstracting a realistic painting / portrait. BTW, please see previous entry on Michele Tanner...
Works on linen for portrait painting, not overly fine, but linen with a certain texture. Artist's goal: she wants to lose the edges so the figure can emerge from the canvas.
What to put in, what to...
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Aug.04.2009
“I paint straight and then I take away,” says portrait painter Michele Giulvezan-Tanner [Click on picture to enlarge!]. I sit in on Michele’s workshop at Sierra Azul Nursery a&Garden in Watsonville, CA. As a writer, I work with the look and manner of characters in my poems. Animals and people...
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Jul.31.2009
 Stallings Picture Portrait Photo.100x150.jpg)
Urge to share this poem, A.E. Stallings' wonderful "Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther" -
"Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
The booze and the neon and Saturday night,
The swaying in darkness, the lovers like spoons?
Why should the Devil get all...
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Jul.30.2009
With the help of my Santa Cruz friend, Ron Barr, I have started to explore the world of Twitter! Follow me here
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Jul.27.2009
Confirmation from Esalen. I'll be teaching "A Weekend Workshop: Autobiography for Poets, Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers," April 9 - April 11, 2010.
Description: Practical instruction in the techniques of autobiography for both experienced and...
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Jul.26.2009
They’re back! The question now is how to get some distance between us and the pigeons. Seems we have a family, a multi-colored male, a drabber female and what appears to be an adolescent. I recognize that look in the mid-size pigeon’s eyes, a pre-intelligence, a willingness to follow orders, yes,...
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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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