David Swartz

A Second Coming: [birth of the Poet] a Memoir David Swartz

A terrifying descent into madness, the first fearful steps on the path to recovery, this uncompromising memoir captures all the urgent and hypnotic tension of a commercial thriller. A Second Coming-the companion volume to Swartz's great long-poem "The Will to Christ"-is a probing investigation of the unconscious and metaphysical wellsprings of a singular poetic gift. And yet it is more. This story is without question the most accurate portrayal to date of the largely uncharted regions of schizophrenia, a compelling and solitary journey into yogic meditation and a massive abuse of cannabis non-indica. Swartz's manic delusion was the very overthrow of God and cleansing of the evolutionary process. After a twelve-day descent into terror, strapped to a hospital gurney, he emerges to an uncertain future and the realization that his whole experience was neither reality, nor, even more strangely, anything approaching fantasy.