ISBN: 0887533752
Trade Paperback, 96 pages, 5 W X 6 H
Black Moss Press $17.95

This book is part of the Palm Poets Series, published by Black Moss Press

"I like the wide sweep of it. There are many mysteries between father and son that people don't talk about... There's much leaping, but each line, so to speak, steps firmly on something solid.The father figure comes through consistently, there's a lot of buoyancy and the son is consistent and fine too."—Robert Bly, author of IRON JOHN

e can claim Robert Sward as Canadian in about the same way we often claim Saul Bellow as a countryman, and in doing so be justifiably proud of the literary talent this great land of ours spawns. And I can read Sward as I often read Bellow, with an appreciation for the polished (and very American) voice but with one eye out for the hidden and not so hidden canuckism, the mark of us on them (lots of Canadian poets are feted in this book, most notably Earle Birney riding a speeding bicycle through a graveyard). In the end though, I read them both because they make me laugh out loud, because their drive to write complex examinations of pained, struggling humanity has not excised their funny bones.

The title section of Sward's latest collection, one of over twenty to his long and distinguished credit, is a hilarious Bellovian (or should I say Richlerian?) narrative about the relationship of a boy/man and his father, beginning with the boy's bar mitzvah and carrying through false starts and tragedies, several marriages and unending career advice to its culmination in the inevitable death scene. It is rare to find such perfectly sketched characters and such rhythmic and nuanced dialogue in contemporary poetry. Sward bounces off John Ashbery's oblique diving board to land in Stuart Ross' swimming pool.

The final two sections of Heavenly Sex, some flashbacks to greatest hits and some new stuff, contain a number of talking dogs, an ill-tempered parrot (are there any other kinds?), 48 poets named Robert and various celebrations of (north) American life in the second half of the last century. You will be entertained.

John Degen is a poet and playwright living in Toronto. His latest book is Killing Things (Pedlar Press, 2002)