page_title: Robert Sward
section_title: Books
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Sward / Books
caption_attribution_description: English: New &amp; Collected Poems 1957-2015
context_page_description: Robert Sward is an American and Canadian poet and novelist. Jack Foley, in his Introduction to Sward's Collected Poems, 1957–2004 calls him, "in truth, a citizen, at heart, of both countries. At once a Canadian and American poet, one with a foot in both worlds, Sward also inhabits an enormous in-between." Or, as Rainer Maria Rilke puts it, "Every artist is born in an alien country; he has a homeland nowhere but within his own borders."
context_section_description: Sward's first book, Uncle Dog & Other Poems (1962), was published by Putnam & Co. in England. It was followed by Kissing the Dancer (Cornell University Press, 1964), with an Introduction by Pulitzer Prize poet William Meredith. The Carleton Miscellany reviewed the book saying, "In the animal poems there is a bravery in the face of our limitations, a warmth for our absurdities, a way of life to be gleaned from our failings and ineptitudes... a self-critique that turns our freakishness into an ironic source of fulfillment and transcendence." Source: Theodore Holmes in "The Carleton Miscellany" 1964. The poem, "Uncle Dog: The Poet At 9", has been frequently anthologized and Sward continues to write about exotic animals and dogs in particular. Animated videos of these works (mini-movies with poetry) employ avatars, digital representations of the poet and his subjects, and appear in DVD format and online at Blue's Cruzio Cafe.
  A key theme in his most recent books, Rosicrucian in the Basement (2001), Heavenly Sex (2002), The Collected Poems, 1957–2004 (2004), and God is in the Cracks (2006), is fathers and sons. Sward's father, Dr. Irving M. Sward, was a podiatrist and something of a mystic, combining his practice of Rosicrucianism with a study of the Kabbalah. Of Rosicrucian in the Basement, Robert Bly writes, 'There are many mysteries between father and son that people don't talk about... There's much leaping [in Sward's poetry], but each line, so to speak, steps on something solid.'  In commenting on the father and son series Dana Gioia adds, "The CD is terrific... Rosicrucian in the Basement unfolds perfectly at its own pace and never loses the listener." Source: Robert Sward: Poetry, Review & Interview with Jack Foley, Recorded for KPFA-FM Berkeley, CA with readings from Heavenly Sex & Rosicrucian in the Basement (2002), Uncle Dog Audio, Number 1002 (2002), and The Collected Poems,  Black Moss Press,1957–2004 (2004).
  Garrison Keillor selected God is in the Cracks, one of the father and son poems and title poem of Sward's 2006 collection, for broadcast on his radio show "Writer's Almanac."
caption: New & Collected Poems forthcoming
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