James Norman’s first encounter with the realities of politics came during his early adolescence. While other kids were concerned with school and playing, Norman was learning about blood diamonds and civil wars from a Liberian refugee who became like a second mother to him.
“This woman that I loved very dearly and was a huge part of my life had her life severely damaged by this luxury item with a completely inflated value,” he says.
It was then he understood that diplomacy isn’t some far-off looming matter—it’s personal, and it shapes lives in ways you can’t ignore. That fire has been burning in him since, and it’s what fueled his fifth poetry collection, How to Set Yourself on Fire and Call It Art.
But Norman doesn’t scream his views from a podium. His verses aren’t about grandeur, complex stanzas or hollow activism. He writes about people, about the everyday struggles of those caught in the crossfire of a world that feels like it’s falling apart. He writes with a modern voice that doesn’t mimic the past. It’s raw, relatable and deeply rooted in situations he’s witnessed and participated in.
The son of a Navy man and a preacher’s daughter turned journalist, Norman has lived and worked everywhere and nowhere—marijuana fields in the hills of California, ships at sea, rundown mansions in South Texas and on miles of open roads. At 39, he’s settled into a steadier rhythm and—besides the restlessness of his own pen—he’s been busy helping writers get published through independent company Zeitgeist Press, touring with fellow author Daryl Gussin, slinging cocktails Downtown, and tanging with underground art projects that serve a greater purpose. With another two-week poetry tour coming up this November, it’s clear Norman hasn’t shaken the itch to keep moving and living.
Can you tell me how this collection came together?
This one was written around the time that Trump was [first] running. The political is always the personal and I thought that we were reaching a point where, because of aggregation, social media tools and AI, we’re losing connection to the personal part of our experiences. I wanted to write something that addressed some of the problems of this era but I wanted to do it in a way that felt lived in.
The title, How to Set Yourself on Fire and Call It Art, and the cover art set up the book differently in my mind than when I was reading through it.
How to Set Yourself on Fire and Call It Art
You always want to go big with titles.Thích Quang Đuc is the monk who’s on the Rage Against the Machine album cover and I’ve always been fascinated that something so self-destructive can be a form of resistance and love. There’s a little bit of a self-destructive streak in all artists I’ve ever met. And the subject matter … I’m not a big fan of government structures and constructs but I deeply believe in people… I tell these small stories because you can be critical while sharing interpersonal relationships.
What’s so refreshing about this collection is it’s a modern voice with these ties to an old way of living that a lot of people can’t even imagine. Traveling across the country, living in a van, hopping trains, all that.
But they can. It’s so easy to blow your life up. All you have to do is pull the pin on the grenade. Here’s a good piece of advice for young writers: Don’t read more than you live. Try to keep it balanced. You should read a lot. But you gotta live a lot too or else you won’t know anything for real. You’ll just have read a bunch of sh**.
Do you feel that any of your beliefs align with what your parents taught you growing up?
It’s funny—here’s the thing that couldn’t even happen today. My mom is and has always been a Democrat. My dad Republican. They’re very traditional party people and that used to not be the end of the universe … I don’t think you can do that today.
My theory is that democracy is suffering from entropic loss. Things used to swing and that’s just a natural byproduct. It’s the physics of a system that doesn’t have new ideas being brought in. So until we get out of a two-party system, there’s nothing that can change the stasis we’ve reached. That’s the part of me that’s an anarchist.
A liberal is someone that believes that, if the world changes, it will get better. A conservative is someone who believes that the world changes and it’ll get worse. Both are completely natural responses to new stimulus that comes out of our lives. Like our upbringing, maybe the traumas we’ve dealt with are our conditioning. The conservative response is often, “We have to stop the world from changing.” The most basic principle of the universe is that change happens. To me, it makes sense to embrace certain parts of a liberal ideology, because you cannot prevent change from happening. You’re either going to be a victim of change, or you can be a participant.
Find more from James Norman at vagabondpoetry.com.
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