Some Are and Most Aren't and It's Always Been Like That
2 decades of poetry! In 1 book!
Selected Poems 2004-2024
Two decades of poetic exploration and expression! Welcome to my official Substack newsletter where I will be posting about my poetry, new book Some Are and Most Aren't and It's Always Been Like That (Alien Buddha Press - paperback available via Amazon 5.23), photography and more.
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Growing Up Gay and Amish in America
Many of my readers know me from my first poetry collection The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (2011) which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and well reviewed, hitting #1 on the Gay Poetry Amazon charts several times.
“Young poet and slam performer James Schwartz combines smart, passionate, refreshingly unpretentious poetry and short stories in this staggering illustration of his family problems, love, heartbreak, gay nightlife, gay politics, and the lasting effects of his famously intolerant religion and culture.” - The Advocate Magazine
EDGE REVIEW BY PAUL LANDERMAN:
With apologies to Max Weber and Margaret Mead, any armchair anthropologist or sociologist in North America worthy of cocktail party chatter will be able to explain the propensity of sub-groups and clans and tribes to gather into ever-tighter circles as the onslaught of cultural evolution broaches their sacred world-view. The Mormons did it in their westward trek in the 1840’s, the Quakers, the Mennonites and the Jim Jones Temple folks and of course the Amish as well, all have their stories of hiding from the realities of the then-perceived world and its evils. The difficulty lays in the troubling fringe of each of these groups, how to control, guide, indoctrinate, and sublimate their individual members into compliance with group norms and expectations; Ross Douthat of the New York Times calls it the paranoia of the six-degrees of separation game.
"The Literary Party: Growing up Gay and Amish in America" helps us to see into one of these uniquely American groups and the ways in which it builds tight walls of protection around their world-view by destroying the internally unacceptable. James Schwartz shares with us a view point that is at the same time unique, fascinating, real, and also horrifying, as a young gay man growing up in a traditional Amish farm family. His voice, and his story, which we are allowed to glimpse through his poetry, helps us to understand what it may be like for such a cloistered view of the world from the inside out.
Certainly every such group in American history has similarities, familiar trajectories, and expected time sequences: a coming-of-age story in any other setting, East Los Angeles, for example, or Bedford-Stuyvesant, or Salt Lake City, may stand on similar ground. What helps us appreciate the struggle of Schwartz’ "Literary Party" is the rare insight that is current, fresh, and authentic. I am still upset at Tim Allen and Kirstie Allie for that horrible "For Richer or Poorer" (1997), and I also have to suggest that all of hip-hop and rap combined may not be as authentic as we wish it to be, at least in an anthropological sense. I am still waiting for the Langston Hughes of the twenty-first century, and I am not at all sure that even Martha Beck, with her brilliance, is an authentic Mormon voice either.
Conversely, Schwartz seems to have made the transition to the mainstream American cultural highway fairly easily: "In this time and at this rate/ the world prefers its assassins str8./ Heros for heteros to relate/ comfort for their grieving mate." Poetry is elastic, no matter which culture upon which it focuses nor from which it may be derived, and as a reader, my experience, world view, politics, religion, sexuality, age, and ethnicity all come to bear upon the machinations of my interpretation of any poetry, and in Schwartz’ work I can reflect on not simply what he meant to say, but what the poetry is saying to me right now and right here. The inferred message is, an Amish gay man can speak to me and we can share some universality of human emotion and cross-cultural meaning, and succeed in making the world a little easier to deal with and a little easier to negotiate.
I am eager to see the maturation of this poet; in "The Pale City" ("From the pale city/ beside the sea/ I traveled once more home/ to the fields in hues of tea") helps us see the future of James Schwartz, an authentic American voice, and that uniquely individual voice as well.
Eras
I write in the Introduction that my life divided into Eras would consist of my Amish era, gay club kid era, Punatic era and Detroit era.
Each of these chapters in my life led me to today.
The poetry collected in Some Are and Most Aren't and It's Always Been Like (Selected Poems 2004-2024) highlights each of these chapters.
That all sounds rather lofty but selecting my “best” and favorite poetry from my collections was a challenge to be sure!
I ended up adding my travel photography and AI illustrations to the mix as well.
Some Are and Most Aren't and It's Always Been Like That (Selected Poems 2004-2024)
Book Excerpt:
Sleepcast Poem
The term ‘sleepcast’ (coined by Headspace.com) is described as an audio / visual presentation, a ‘wind down’ & description of a relaxing environment… beginning in the present moment… the hum of traffic on Woodward drifts through the spring evening… the singing crystal bowls soundbath (by Healing Vibrations) ring out on my YouTube app… binaural beats, Om chanting, chakra soundscapes, burning sage, glowing candles, Shiva mantras… inhale, exhale, slow deep breaths while we meditate on my memories…
I met a guru by chance, as one does at Kehena Beach… he wore flowing robes & flowers & told me Shiva was the god of both marijuana & tobacco… he had just returned from a forbidden city in India… He grew his own medicine which he proudly displayed on the black sand, marveling at the glittering trichomes, inviting me to marvel as well, I agree I have seen none finer… He fills a bowl of his bounty & we smoke, watching the dolphins frolic, the drums from the Sunday drum circle pound with the surf… side by side we pass the bowl & gaze at the impossibly azure Pacific before us…
Kehena Beach is a clothing optional gathering spot of the seekers & celebrated on the Big Island… where hippies, WOOFers, & backpackers pick their way down a treacherous cliff side to the volcanic sands below…
The dolphins draw closer attracted by the drumming which in turn fuels the drummers… naked bronzed bodies writhe to the rhythms, a rainbow arcs overhead & the slightest rain mists through the sunshine… several dogs race down the length of the crashing Pacific… my guru friend leaves an offering to Shiva before departing… I watch the dance of the dolphins… inhaling the cleanest air on Earth… before I gently bring us back to the present moment… back to the city & street noise… if you feel like lingering on the beach you may do so… inhale, exhale, slow deep breaths… in your deep state of serenity…
Namaste.
Lastly: I'll be co-hosting the fourth season of Plain Rainbows: LGBTQ Amish and Anabaptist Stories podcast with Mary Byler which will debut in June for Pride month! Plain Rainbows podcast can be found on YouTube, FB, Podbean etc.
OFM: Plain Rainbows: Giving A Face to the Faceless
