 ROBERT
SWARD has taught at Cornell University, the University of Iowa Writers'
Workshop, and UC Santa Cruz. Former Fulbright scholar at the University
of Bristol and Guggenheim Fellow for Poetry, he was chosen by |
1. Switchblade Poetry: Chicago Style 5. UNCLE DOG: THE POET AT 9 2. Sailor Librarian: San Diego 6. THE KITE 3. Mr. Amnesia: Cambridge 7. KISSING THE DANCER 4. Santa Claus: Santa Cruz 8. MARRIAGE |
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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 was to write postcards to inform my brother thugs--who carried switchblade knives and stole cars for fun and profit--as to when, where and why we were meeting. Rhyming couplets seemed the appropriate form to notify characters like light-fingered Foxman, cross eyed Harris, and Irving "Koko," of upcoming meetings. An example of my switchblade juvenilia: The Semcoes meet next Thursday night at Speedway Koko. Five bucks dues, Foxman, or fight. Koko was a young boxer whose father owned Chicago's Speedway Wrecking Company and whose basement was filled with punching bags and pinball machines. Koko and the others joked about my affliction--the writing of poetry--but were so astonished that they criticized me mainly for my inability to spell. TOP 2. Sailor Librarian: San Diego At 17, I graduated from high school, gave up my job as soda jerk and joined the Navy. The Korean War was underway; my mother had died, and Chicago seemed an oppressive place to be. My thanks to the U.S. Navy. They taught me how to type (60 words a minute), organize an office, and serve as a librarian. In 1952 I served in Korea aboard a 300 foot long, flat bottomed Landing Ship Tank (LST). A Yeoman 3rd Class, I became overseer of 1200 paperback books, a sturdy upright typewriter, and a couple of filing cabinets. The best thing about duty on an LST is the ship's speed: 8-10 knots. It takes approximately one month for an LST to sail between San Diego and Pusan, Korea. In that month I read Melville's Moby Dick, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Thoreau's Walden, Isak Dinesen's Winter's Tales, the King James Version of the Bible, Shakespeare's Hamlet, King Lear, and a biography of Abraham Lincoln. While at sea, I began writing poetry as if poems, to paraphrase Thoreau, were secret letters from some distant land. I sent one poem to a girl named Lorelei with whom I was in love. Lorelei had a job at the Dairy Queen. Shortly before enlisting in the Navy, I spent $15 of my soda jerk money taking her up in a single engine, sight-seeing airplane so we could kiss and--at the same time--get a good look at Chicago from the air. Beautiful Loreli never responded to my poem. Years later, at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, I learned that much of what I had been writing (love poems inspired by a combination of lust and loneliness) belonged, loosely speaking, to a tradition--the venerable tradition of unrequited love. TOP 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 was invited to do 14 poetry readings in a two week stretch at places like Dartmouth, Amherst, and the University of Connecticut. The day before I was scheduled to embark on the reading series, I was hit by a speeding MG in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I lost my memory for a period of about 24 hours. Just as I saw the world fresh while cruising to a war zone, so I now caught a glimpse of what a city like Cambridge can look like when one's inner slate, so to speak, is wiped clean. TOP 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 children, feeling transformed from one's skinny, sad eyed self, into an elf--having to chant the prescribed syllables, "Ho, Ho, Ho." What is poetry? For me, it's the restrained music of a switchblade knife. It's an amphibious warship magically transformed into a basketball court, and then transformed again into a movie theater showing a film about the life of Joan of Arc. It is the vision of an amnesiac, bleeding from a head injury, witnessing the play of sunlight on a red brick wall. Poetry comes to a bearded Jewish wanderer, pulling on a pair of high rubber boots with white fur, and a set of musical sleigh bells, over blue, fleece lined sweat pants. It comes to the father of five children bearing gifts for 400 and, choked up, unable to speak, alternately laughing and sobbing the three traditional syllables--Ho, Ho, Ho--hearing at the same time, in his heart, the more plaintive, tragic--Oi vay, Oi vay, Oi vay. TOP 5. 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. Uncle dog sat there me-beside-him emptying nothing. Barely even looking from garbage side to side: Like rich people in the backseats of chauffeur-cars, only shaggy in an unwagging tall-scrawny way. Uncle dog belonged any just where he sat, but old Mr. Garbage man had to stop at everysingle can. I thought. I did not want to be Mr. Everybody calls them that first. A dog is said, Dog! Or by name. I would rather be called Rover than Mr. And sit like a tough smart mongrel beside a garbage man. Uncle dog always went to places unconcerned, without no hurry. Independent like some leashless Toot. Honorable among scavenger can-picking dogs. And with a bitch at every other can. And meat: His for the barking. Oh, I wanted to be uncle dog--sharp, high fox- eared, cur-Ford truck-faced With his pick of the bones. A doing, truck man's dog and not a simple child-dog Nor friend to man, but an uncle traveling, and to himself-- and a bitch at every second can. TOP 6. THE KITE I still heard Auntie Blue after she did not want to come down again. She was skypaper, way up too high to pull down. The wind liked her a lot, and she was lots of noise and sky on the end of the string. And the string jumped hard all of a sudden, and the sky never even breathed, but was like it always was, slow and close far-away blue, like poor dead Uncle Blue. Auntie Blue was gone, and I could not think of her face. And the string fell down slowly for a long time. I was afraid to pull it down. Auntie Blue was in the sky, just like God. It was not my birthday anymore, and everybody knew, and dug a hole, and put a stone on it next to Uncle Blue's stone, and he died before I was even born. And it was too bad it was so hard to pull her down; and flowers. TOP 7. KISSING THE DANCER Song is not singing, the snow Dance is dancing, my love On my knees, with voice I kiss her knees And dance; my words are song, for her I dance; I give up my words, learn wings instead We fly like trees when they fly To the moon. There, there are some now The clouds opening, as you, as we are there Come in! I love you, kiss your knees with words, Enter you, your eyes your lips, like Lover Of us all, words sweet words learn wings instead. TOP 8. MARRIAGE I lie down in darkness beside her, this earth in a wedding gown. Who, what she is, I do not know, nor is it a question the night would ask. I have listened-- The woman beside me breathes. I kiss that, a breath or so of her, and glow. Glow. Hush now, my shadow, let us... Day breaks-- depart. Yes, and so we have. TOP These last four poems are excerpted from Robert Sward's Collected Poems, 1957-2004, due out next year from Black Moss Press in Canada Copyright 2003, Robert Sward. All rights reserved. |