There's an excess at the heart of being that's wild
There's an excess at the heart of being that's wild
In this work, Todd Swift pursues his exploration of how art, fantasy, and desire can console, or inflame, the heart – and how, against the vastly more powerful claims of reality, the imagination can do no more than offer its impulsive, fragile and poignant gifts. Love and lust, fear and trust, hope and despair are tangled.
Stanley Todd Swift
born in Montreal, Canada, in 1966, was named after his British granddad, Stanley Swift, and Todd, the character from the TV show Route 66. He was a 2017-2018 Visiting Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge, as the Writer-in-residence. He has had over twenty collections of his own poetry published, by presses in Canada, the US, Ireland, and the UK. Mentored by A. Alvarez in London, he considers himself a confessional poet. He has a PhD in creative and critical writing from the UEA, where his supervisors included George Szirtes, Denise Riley and Jon Cook.
He is a book collector, lover of cats, and keen swimmer. He has many wonderful nieces and nephews, and one godson, the beautiful lad Alex. He has written over 100 hours of television, including for Paramount, the CBC, Fox, CINAR, Disney, and HBO - and was the series editor for anime cult classic Sailor Moon.
"Todd Swift is the Orson Welles of contemporary poetry" - Professor Mark Ford