"Robert Sward is a seriously funny poet. Rimbaud in a dune buggy. The muse in free fall..." -- Robert Dana, author of Yes, Everything
Begun in 1965 against the backdrop of the war in Vietnam, sections of "Horgbortom Stringbottom, I Am Yours, You Are History" appeared in Poetry (Chicago), Carleton Miscellany, El Corno Emplumado (Mexico City), Wild Dog, and elsewhere.
In Mexico, one portion of the book-length poem, appeared in Walter Lowenfels' anthology, Where Is Vietnam? American Poets Respond, reprinted from Poetry (Chicago) where it was originally published.
That working title, In Mexico, applied to the place of the poem's origin and the landscape in which the lyrics and refrain are rooted--alongwith the American Southwest. While working on the poem, I lived in San Miguel de Allende; Taos, New Mexico; Peterborough, New Hampshire; and Victoria, British Columbia.
"Horgbortom" was first conceived as a 100-page Broadsheet and collage for a chorus of 50 or more voices--among them Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, Minotaur, waterskiers, etc. Begun in Mexico, the final corrections were made in 1969 in New Hampshire with the prospect of the work appearing again outside the States.
I was in voluntary exile, teaching at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, when Swallow Press published "Horgbortom Stringbottom" in 1970.
The Chicago Daily News wrote, "...an apocalyptic vision of what has gone wrong with America over the past 10 years."
Library of Congress Catalaog Card Number: 77-11029
*Horgbortom is a play on the name Humpty Dumpty. 'Horgbortom Stringbottom' is my surrealistic way of speaking about America, a country I love.