Name Dropping

Robert Sward
From:   Four Incarnations. Coffee House Press, 1991.

I'm at Yaddo sheltering myself from the drizzle
        standing under a tree
reading Philip Roth's The Great American Novel
waiting for my friends Joe and Carol Bruchac
to arrive
with four friends from Canada
who are in Saratoga Springs, New York,
to give a poetry reading,
Bruce Meyer, Richard Harrison, Robert Lawrence
        and Ross Leckie,
when up pulls this big shiny car
which I approach smiling
thinking it's Joe and Carol,
but it's not, it's Burns International
        Security Services, Inc.
and the man wants to know if Yaddo
has anything more than "internal security."
        "I'm John Weidman," he says.
"You must be a writer."
"Yep."
"What's your name?"
"Sward, my name is Robert Sward, like greensward."
"Oh," he says, disappointed he doesn't
know any of my books but
still impressed to be meeting
a Yaddo author.
I should have said, "My name is
Philip Roth, John, and this is my new book,
        The Great American Novel,
but as usual I think of things like that
        too late.
"Look," he says, handing me his business card,
J.W. Weidman
        Security Sales Consultant,
"Mention my name in your next book, okay?"

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6 | Poem 7 | Poem 8

Robert Sward's works copyright © to the author.