Robert Sward
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Robert Sward is a Canadian poet and novelist who currently lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Works:
- The Jurassic Shales - 1975
- Honey Bear On Lasqueti Island B.C. - 1978
- The Toronto Islands - 1983
- A Much-Married Man - 1996
- Rosicrucian in the Basement - 2001
- Heavenly Sex: New & Selected Poems - 2002
Sward began writing poetry in Chicago at the age of 15 when he became involved with a small street gang and used couplets in his notes to the other gang members. He graduated from high school at 17 and quit his job to join the Navy. The Korean War was underway at the time and his mother had recently passed away. In his words, "Chicago seemed an oppressive place to be." Sward learned to type in the Navy, and also to organize an office and serve as a librarian. In 1952 he was stationed in Korea on a 300 foot-long ship. A Yeoman 3rd Class, Sward soon became the head of the ship's library. Another quote from Sward has this to say: "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." In 1962, after ten years of writing poetry, Sward's 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. In 1966, he accepted invitations to perform fourteen poetry readings in a period of only two weeks at places including Dartmouth, Amherst, and the University of Connecticut. The day before Sward was scheduled to embark on tour, however, he was hit by a speeding car in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He suffered from amnesia for approximately 24 hours. In one final quote from Sward, "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."