San Francisco contemporary beat poetry. Collection of poetry; chapbook format.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Mark Schwartz is a latter day animist, a savage in the saintly state, more goofy than Sufis, and will never condescend to nouvelle cuisine. He's more left than left in feeding the bereft, and his very wit is a pox upon yuppiedom. WHere others need incline toward poetic licence, he fully falls in with poetic licentiousness, and had been known to string more whores along than Fellatio Alger at his hardest working. Some call him fool or hypocrite, but there is no denying the guy's got courage and is a hell of a lot funnier than Feminists & Moslems on Prozac and like the air, he's omni-present, indispensable and harder to see through every day. --Ronald F. Sawer Mark Schwartz does not know how to write. He writes powerfully. As to the question of whether or not Schwartz writes with feeling, why do so many of these poems disturb one? They read like words of a village idiot. A global village idiot. With the confessional naivete of a child. Or of one who's been given a dose of something. Or himself has taken something, but the child within could not be zapped away. It's a disarming poetry. It's like someone sat him down and said, "Write something about yourself." And he wrote the first thing that came into his head, like, "I am that I am." One of the meanings of that now almost ego-desperate dictum from The Old Testament is that "existing exists so that it exists, that is continue, add to itself, stay present as endurance." Something of that quality is in Schwartz's poetry, precisely because it's absurdly naked like someone taking his or her clothes off for the sex act at the altogether wrong moment. Still, the nakedness is there. And an action or reflection of some kind has to take place. Tha't why Mark Schwartz can be said to write a provocative poetry. Read his book and you'll understand why that is so. --Jack Hirschman San Francisco March 1996 END -- Publisher Comments
About the Author
Mark Schwartz was born in the Bronx and lived in a Jewish neighborhood in the Kingsbridge section. Mark was never barmitzvahed. He went to DeWitt Clinton High School, where he graduated third in his class of over 1000 students. He went to Cornell University at the age of 16, the youngest in his freshman class. He graduated 4 years later, again the youngest in his class, and went on to work for the Federal Aviation Administration, Union Carbide, Harvard University, Camp Equinunk, GTE Products Corp, and Viacom. Mark was diagnosed manic depressive in Jamuary 1981. He became a regular at open poetry readings: in 1981 at the Cloud House, '82 at the Roxie, Spaghetti Factory in '83, Cafe Chelsea '83, Rose and THistle in '85, Cafe Babar in '87, and Paradise Lounge in '88. At one time, Mark was emceeing the poetry readings at Sacred Grounds, Yakety Yak and Cafe Prague. Mark wrote over 1000 poems, most of which were lost. His "to know no boundries" poem was stolen by Merill Lynch in Sept. '86 and used as a commercial. Mark is survived by 2 brothers and 2 sisters, 10 nephews and nieces.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
classic san francisco existential angst poems,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Picture is Worth 62 Words (Paperback)
mark schwartz is a zen master without even knowing it.the ease with which his poems are written tags the turf of a man who has walked many miles through the city of san francisco in old sneakers, talking to every sidewalk saint, using all six senses to humbly communicate with the universe in all her glory!
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