Ah, James,

What a sweet man.  I always enjoyed his great sense of humor. 

And I always thought he got short shrift in the faerie community, being overshadowed by Harry Hay.  I always remember this 'rift,' if indeed that is what it was, between Harry and James over who was the original RadFae.  Certainly Harry won the popular vote, but I've never been truly sure.  And I'm not sure it matters. 

James, in my mind, has always held equal footing as a Founder.
And I think he equally embodied the spirit of Fae - a different flavor than Harry - but equally fine.  James always seemed a little more Zen about things (or was that drugged?  I'm not sure.) 

James' poetry clearly stands out for me, with the "This is It..." poem at the top of the list. 

 This is It
and I am It
and You are It
and so is That

and He is It
and She is It
and It is It 
and That is That ...

Truth, humor, delight.  That's the case for the poem, and that's how I remember James.

much love,
Pala / Jack Harvey

David Michael told this story recently:

I’m a harpist in Port Townsend, was a good friend of James.

I met James in 1991, the first year I was here. Sometimes in those days, a captain on the ferryboat would not let me play on the boat. I had been locked off the local ferry, but I was allowed to busk in the Flagship Landing, right next to the ferry dock.

So I was playing my Celtic harp there, and along comes this man who gave me the biggest smile, and he gasps and says, “Oh, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

Then he flopped himself on the ground, laying in front of me, blocking traffic. He was sighing and gasping with joy. Finally, he gets up and throws his arms around me, and says, “Oh, darling, I love your music! I’m a poet and I would love to get together with you and do a collaboration!”

And I’m thinking to myself, who is this guy? “Uh, maybe I could see some of your poems first?”

And he says, “Well, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m James Broughton, and I’ll go get you a book out of my car.”

And I said, “Oh, you’re James Broughton. Oh, wow!” OK, and I’m thinking to myself, I know I’ve heard of James Broughton, and it was the Alan Watts book. I knew that poem, “This is It.” I was just putting that together when he came rushing back with a book of his poems [Special Deliveries], and he gave me a big hug and we exchanged phone numbers.

I went home that night, and I just could not put this book down. I called him the next day, and said, “I love your work, too. Let’s get together and do something.”

So we did several performances, entailing him reading a poem, and I’d improvise a vignette for 10 or 12 seconds, and I was like the bookmark between his poems. After he got to know my music better, he would sing to my tunes. What a remarkable meeting!

The Big Joy Project is announcing our animated poetry video contest!

“More bubbly please,” were some of James' last words just over 11 years ago. This year, to commemorate the anniversary on a cloudy spring morning just over a dozen people, including James life partner Joel Singer, gathered with poetry and champagne to bury the remainder of James ashes next to his Port Townsend graveside monument.

Poetry, champagne, costume, and song were the order of the day. People shared stories of sparkling moments they had had with James, what they loved about him— such as how his exuberance seem to make everything else come alive. Poems were read. And others spoke of how James was still affecting them positively even a decade after his death.

One young woman shared how she had never met James but had discovered his poetry in college. His words had been so pivotal to her that many years later, when she discovered his gravesite in Port Townsend, she was so touched she had made it a regular stopping point on her daily jogs. She told us how often she stood next to the epitaph, arms wide open to the sky, looking down the hill to the Puget Sound and sang or shouted poetry and thanks to the world. And that’s just what we did that day.

Below are a few photos from the graveside ceremony of Big Joy.

One of the great experiences in my life was being charmed, flattered and bamboozled by the amazing poet James Broughton. I was at my hard-body workingman studliest; he was a wrinkled troll of 80. After a few minutes of his absolutely shameless poetic flimflam, I'd have willingly rolled over on the ground for him like a love-starved golden retriever bitch pup.

Then he stroked my tit and said "It's been very sweet, my boy." and walked away. I realized that as the expression goes "He'd had his way with me..." further that I'd liked it and wanted him to do it again; furthermore that he'd refined his skills as a romantic seducer, poet and storyteller to a fine art. He did do as he pleased with me, and I wanted more.

I realized suddenly that I wasn't always going to be studly. I'd better get my act together in the direction of being warm, deep, and wise if'n I wanted to be valued for who I was when the envelope of meat part got soft and wrinkled. Who was I going to be?

How could I behave so that the man I am inside could still be perceived? I'm happy with my life as constructed, it works for me now. I have both amusing and painful stories about what didn't work in my life and family. I am sincerely interested in knowing how you got to where you are now and who you are. It usually takes more than one word comments to convey that. At Thich Nhat Hanh's monastery in France they ask that question with "What wind blew you here?"

-- Brightheart

Radical

Unearth your roots

Shake ‘em at the sky

Uphold your traditions

Hold up your radical

Hold down your fort

Breathe easily, not queasily

*

Find and mine what’s obvious

By opening your eyes wider

Wide enough to take in

What you thought was forever outlawed

Wide enough to put out

A part of you you forgot

*

Love more

Love your weird self

Love what’s aching to come out

Love what struggles to get in

Unbind your weariness

And offer it to the sunrise

Express your weird self but

Keep it simple

Don’t be afraid to ask

And unlearn whatever’s holding you back

-- Stephen Silha, April 9, 2010 (my 60th birthday)

I met James Broughton right after The Man Who Fell In Love With the Moon was published. I’m not sure if it was the hard cover book tour or the paperback tour.

I’d heard of James. I’d seen his movies This is It and The Bed somewhere down off Canal Street when I lived in Manhattan. But I didn’t really know him. Hadn’t read his poetry, not yet. Then one day I get a letter from him, James Broughton. He’s invited me and my partner to his home in Port Townsend. This is almost twenty years ago.

It’s not really until I meet James that day that I understand who he is. Really such a big bright sexy man he was. Physically beautiful and a powerful man. Quite overwhelming really.

Even though he was getting old.

Old the way I’m getting.

And it’s only now that I am getting old that I can really appreciate what James Broughton did for me that day.

He opened up his house, he gathered friends and family together and threw me a feast for Kings. What’s most important though is that day that I visited him and stayed with him that night in his house—it was in the afternoon in his garden, how he touched me. He took my hand in his and he held my hand and those bright sparkly eyes of his looked into mine and he told me what a wonderful writer I was.

Of course, I was very flattered. Pretty much overwhelmed, but still I didn’t get it. Lots of people were telling me how great I was after that book came out. It’s only been the past couple of years, now that I am getting old, that I know what it is to see a young talent, and the energy and the humility it takes to go to him, to throw a feast for him, to take his hand and look him in the eye.

And tell him that his work is full of spirit. What an incredible gift that is for an elder to honor a younger man like that.

After the day was over, after the feast, James was tired. He told us all to go out to the hot tub and love our bodies and love each other---he was going to bed. It wasn’t that easy a thing for me to get naked and to get in the hot tub. I was raised Catholic. Joel Singer, James’ life mate, was in the tub. Joel saw how I was awkward and took me by the arm. It was one of the first times I’d ever felt I belonged somewhere.

After my next novel, In The City Of Shy Hunters, came out, I got a letter from Joel. He told me that James had made a vow that he would not die until the next Tom Spanbauer novel came out.

James had died in 1999, two years before Shy Hunters was published.

I can’t tell you how much I wish he’d have lived long enough to read it.

And it’s really only not until now that I can fully understand the gift of joy that he gave me.

(read by Tom Spanbauer at the Big Joy Fundraising event in Portland, OR, 28 March 2010)