Newly Released: Memoir
Soul Knows No Bars: a Writer’s Journey Doing Poetry with Inmates
This book is about my fourteen year sojourn inside Auburn Correctional Facility, a men’s maximum security prison in Auburn, New York, as a weekly volunteer facilitating a poetry workshop. Although it is a prose memoir, the book contains some of the inmates’ poems, plus some of mine about my experiences.
“Tears are flowing as I read your memoir. Tears of love for the humanity you model as you teach others how to explore life with poetry; a creation in the midst of a prison. The poems of these men are a gift, as is your writing about this wonderful poetry workshop inside Auburn Correctional Facility.”
–Jean D. Doughtwright, activist
$14.00
Poetry
Know Better: poems of resistance
“The entire chapbook Know Better is invigorating and thought provoking. I savored each piece before moving on. Each of your pieces called to me, spoke to me. While reading “Black Friday: Ferguson,” as a woman of color I was blown away by your rendition of thoughts that I have carried, feelings that I have felt and my own anger. Thank you for penning such a beautiful, ruminative read and for letting me share some of the places where your creative work has taken me.”
–Almeta Whitis, poet, performance artist
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)The Crows of Copper John: a History of Auburn Prison in Poems
Journey with us deep into the dark heart of the history of Auburn Prison, the forbidding fortress that has dominated the landscape of this small city since 1821…Learn about how the first convicts were forced into solitary confinement and total silence…Why have a murder of crows come to the trees surrounding the prison again and again generation after generation for almost two hundred years? In this volume of lyric narrative poems–which serve as dramatic monologues–the voices of Auburn Prison and its grisly yet sometimes inspiring past speak to us… All share their stories… Yet in the end it is still the cries of the crows bearing witness that echo through the night.
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)Charleston Girls: a memoir in poems of a West Virginia childhood
“Sometimes intense, often poignant, these lyric-narrative poems recreate growing up in the 1050’s, in a seemingly quaint southern landscape, with its promise of ‘the sweet life.’ This is quickly dispelled in language that is both stunning and haunting. The Charleston Girls are sisters, whose conspiracies enable them to survive their quick-silver childhood. Over time, these sisters learn to ask the necessary ‘why,’ which takes us out of life’s ordinary minutes to make us see how mores were changing for those who would become modern women.”
–M.J. Iuppa, Small Worlds Floating
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)The Loneliness of Squash, and Other Writings
This is a volume of lyric short prose: creative non-fiction, prose poems, and poems.
“To read The Loneliness of Squash, and Other Writings is to come away convinced that Patricia Roth Schwartz is a flat-out poet–one who meets life with intensity, living its truth completely and intimately, then distills her experiences into passionate, authentic fiction, non-fiction and prose poetry. Writing in this context is more than writing: It is a metaphor for a life.”
–G. E. Schwartz, Lvng in Tongues
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)The La Brea Tar Pit Blues: a Memoir of a Los Angeles Adolescence in Poems and Lyric Short Prose
“Like the microfossils caught in La Brea, Patricia Roth Schwartz’ language bubbles and ensnares readers into an adolescence blooming with emotion and color, and observations which reveal the heart of the girl, as well as place and time. Whether it is the gift of a snowball shared by a sister, melting as the family watches, the amazing Madame Scarlatina, a parade of Miss Americas on TV, elephants rising from streams of pink frosting, Tricia Nixon’s slip, the gilded Chicanas in detention, or Leda’s sweaters warmed in her mother’s bright red oven, Schwartz preserves them all. This collection is rich; a poetic cache of the past, the gems and bones of an early life, intact and flickering on the page.”
–Sonya Livingston, Ghostbread
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)Down the Middle with a Nickel: a Memoir of a West Virginia Childhood in Poems
“With all the vividness and clarity of a Brownie home movie, these vignettes of a West Virginia girlhood are a mnemonic triumph. Young Patty confronts all the terrors that 1950s America could conjure: the Bomb, polio, Russian spies, the junior-high dance. We watch her growing awareness of rural poverty, marital disharmony, sexual repression and gender regimentation-the hidden casualties of an age of confident conformity. Alternately comical, nostalgic, and poignant, this poetic memoir is notable for its range, its skill, and its sensitivity, but especially for delightful surprises at every turn.”
–John Roche, Joe Poems
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)Planting Bulbs in a Time of War, and Other Poems
Written in the aftermath of 9/11, this is a gardener’s response to terror, moving from the present day back to World War II as experienced by her parents. How do we find the courage to plant new life for a future we can barely envision?
“Patricia Roth Schwartz’s compelling poems unflinchingly address family’s history and history’s family, and we are the better for it. Hers is a voice of empathy and grace, a voice that reminds us in all ways to be mindful of ‘the other.'”
–Thom Ward, Elektra’s Daughters
$12.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)Hungers
A gentle yet fierce first collection of lyric poems from the heart of the women’s movement of the 70s yet deeply personal. These are the poems by a 30ish woman coming out in all possible ways: as a poet, as an urban dweller on her own, as a lover of women navigating the perilous waters of love and friendship betrayed, lost, renewed. This book was one of four titles funded by a community arts grant from Aetna Life in Hartford, CT, given to The Blue Spruce Poets Collective of which Schwartz was a part. These four women–Helen Lawson, Norma Blacke-Bragg, Joan Shapiro, and Schwartz–pioneered contemporary women’s poetry in that area in the 1970s with numerous readings and appearances.
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)Short Fiction
The Names of the Moons of Mars
Winner of a Lambda Literary Award in 1989: a volume of short fiction from the 70s and 80s published by New Victoria, a woman-identified press: developed with a keen eye for detail and substantial attention to the craft of its genre, these pieces explore how we light–or fail to light–the candles that lie deep within each others’ hearts.
“Pat Schwartz’s characters are just like ourselves: spirited, sensual, funny, aching with the difficulty of being human in an unjust world. Enjoy this book, It’s better than therapy.”
–Jacqueline Lapidus, Starting Over and Ultimate Conspiracy
$10.00
Books Edited by Patricia Roth Schwartz:
Doing Time to Cleanse My Mind: an Anthology from the Inmates’ Poetry Workshop of Auburn Correctional Facility, Auburn, New York, 2001-2009
“Reading the poems in this anthology felt freeing. The fiery, raw, raven-eyed honesty of its incarcerated men’s work made me feel less locked inside whatever bars of ignorance, anger, fear, and stereotypes I’m peering through. I am grateful to these poets for the brave dignity of their words – for being my teacher. A ark night of the soul journey, indeed, but one which guides the reader out into a shock of transcending light.
–Susan Deer Cloud, Before Language
$10.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)Guerillas in the Mist, and Other Poems
by Michael Rhynes
This is a chapbook by an inmate in Auburn Correctional Facility (currently Attica) who was part of the poetry workshop facilitated by Schwartz as a volunteer for fourteen years. Describing the Orwellian landscape of politics in the Bush era, as well as behind bars, these poems display an astonishing ability in the author’s craft.
$5.00
(For Mobile, scroll to the bottom to see your cart.)I’m a Lyrical Brother, and I Can Feel It in My Bones
This is a chapbook anthology by inmates in Auburn Correctional Facility who were part of the poetry workshop facilitated by Schwartz as a volunteer for fourteen years.
$5.00 – Temporarily out of print. Check back for availability.
Exiting the Prism—Fade to Black…
by Jalil Muntaqim
The entire manuscript of this full-length volume of poems, both political and personal, has been included in an anthology, published in Canada, of all of Jalil’s writing, including essays. For further information, consult his website, www.freejalil.com.
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