Writer on Writer: Peter Schwartz vs. Ben Tanzer

The first time I met Peter Schwartz I was scheduled to follow him at a reading and he went from reciting poetry to belting out a quite emotional rendition of "Amazing Grace". My first thought was, what a f**ker, I’m supposed to follow that? My second thought though was this guy may be a f**ker, but he’s definitely my kind of f**ker and I need to get to know him. What has since transpired are a series of e-mails that have confirmed my initial suspicions. Peter Schwartz is a funny, talented, pop-culture spewing dude who is maybe just a little f**ked-up. He is also someone you need to know and you can start with his new chapbook, Old Men, Gods, and Monsters, which like Peter himself, is wonderful and heavy, in love with words and endlessly searching to make better sense of confinement and loss and their impact on his life. Now, how about some interview?

BT: There is much I want to ask you, but to start, what did you say to Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe to sway them on the healthcare vote?
PS: Oh. I live a very simple life, caveman-style if you will. I don't know who either of those people are and now I feel warm, foolish, and a little bit bloated.

BT: If you would please tell me what it means to live "a very simple life, caveman-style, if you will?”
PS: Well, I seldom leave my house. If I do it's to go to the library, buy food, or have fumbling sex with the next woman I can charm off Craig's List. Safe to say, most practitioners of modern psychology would probably label me something like a shut-in, but I sure don't feel that way. I write poems and stories and make art and do interviews. All from my little chair. I also explore the vast possibilities of the Internet and when I'm done I'm sure I'll move on to the next thing.

BT: Fumbling sex. Little chairs. This thing called the Internet. Do you think your choice of lifestyle is a necessity for you to be the kind of artist you want to be?
PS: I guess it's a chicken or the egg thing. I'm sure I could work as a farmer or phlebotomist and still be a hell of a poet, but I'm also sure I'd have a completely different personae and style if I did. I don't know if I started writing in the character of Lonely Aging Bachelor because I was one or if I became one because I fell in love with writing in that character, but literature really seems to love a good loser so I'm hopeful.

BT: I’m glad you’re hopeful, which makes me think about how as I read the collection one of the threads I felt like I kept running into was that of confinement and the various negative connotations that come with it. But maybe I misread that. What do you think?
PS: Yes. I'm fascinated by own loneliness and my reactions to my self-imposed nothingness. While millions rush to make another dollar (or lose it), I stay sitting in my room waiting for the next genuine explosion of sad solitude. But I'm not doing my life justice! Think of it as an astronaut training program for someone who knows he's never going to the moon.

BT: As I read that last answer I caught myself thinking, this dude really has a way with words. And there is a line from the ABC’s of loss, “years later I’m obsessed with dictionaries, verbs and history.” So if you would, talk me about words and language and why they are important to you.
PS: Ah, perhaps the source of my darkness. As indicated in that poem, I was seriously abused by my father as a kid. The rape and beatings seemed random so I felt no control over my life at all. So, I created an alter ego of sorts when in high school I joined a band called Hodgepodge. I wrote lyrics. I didn't know it then but I was creating a world I could control. I could write anything I wanted and no one could tell me no. By college, I was reading through the dictionary collecting every word I felt an emotional connection to and writing poems using that list as my palette. The verbs and history part signifies my attachment to the present and past and by omission, my complete and utter disbelief that the future will actually happen.

BT: I think you’re really brave and I admire the hell out of it. Now talk to me about control. Your ability to write poetry allows you to have some control. How do you think this need for control in turn influences your creative process and the results themselves?
PS: That need makes me a perfectionist. There is so much power in simply saying exactly what you want. Let's say the cruelty I've endured put a spell on me. When I write poetry, I break that spell. It's painful though, because to write haunted poetry (which is really all that interests me) you have to feel haunted, you have to get in touch with the darkest parts of your heart. So, if I didn't have that need for control, it follows that my poems wouldn't be as tightly crafted. Only a deranged person trying to make some weird shit right would spend an hour contemplating the merits of using the word "the" or "this," and other such minute decisions that I believe separate an okay poem from a really good one.

BT: Great answer. I think that there a wide array of artists without your background who would probably talk about the creative process in much the same way. What do you think this says about artists?
PS: That we're all spiritual robots programmed by a greater force some call God.

BT: I’ve heard of her. And now since this is an Orange Alert interview, please talk coffee. And music.
PS: Oh no, another one of these moments. I don't drink coffee. But music, now there's a topic I can warm up to. Rather than list the names of bands I think are cool, I'd like to talk about how music has affected my poetic aesthetic instead. I'd say the first big influence would have to be Beck. There is a randomness and whimsicality to his lyrics that I just love. Who else do you know that's going to talk about "beefcake pantyhose" and "chromosome cowboys?” The other influence may surprise you: the Wu Tang Clan and specifically the RZA. Lyrically, if we think of every concept as inhabiting a space, I think RZA's take up a very big one. There's a boldness and unapologetic power in his words that I try to emulate even though I turn that energy inward and basically talk about what a lonely mess I am rather than boasting. His music has affected me too. Some of his beats are awkward and kind of dirty sounding and yet somehow completely beautiful. I love that subtlety. If I wrote a poem about sparkling streams and fragrant flowers, someone might say that's beautiful, but there would be no depth to that beauty. It's hidden beauty that interests me, that secret world always shimmering beneath the surface that we all pass through now and then. That's the stuff.

BT: Long live the RZA. And the Schwartz. You rock dude, and I think we may just be done with this particular interview. Any parting thoughts?
PS: Nah, just thanks.

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