Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, current California gubernatorial candidate, penned some racy erotic poetry in his youth that the Daily Mail revealed this week.
Swalwell reportedly penned the poetry at age 19 when he was enrolled at Campbell’s University while contributing to the literary magazine The Lyricist. One poem, titled “Hungover From Burgundy,” tells a story of two lovers having “formless and magnificent” sex on top of a hotel roof in a “flurry of limbs and nails.”
The poem’s narrator then references being bitten as if by a vampire.
“While I screamed / She bent her lips to mine,” the passage says.
The poem then goes on to describe the couple necking “till veins imploded and exploded … For bounded mouths cannot speak of parting.”
“And there beauty was, formless and magnificent — a flurry of limbs and nails. She chased and I ran, I chased and she ran,” it says. “Atop my hotel she stopped, and I lept for cloth and tan, my anxious arm she bit — my scar is beautiful.”
“While I screamed, she bent her lips to mine. Kissing till veins imploded and exploded, till blood rolled down our chins, for bounded mouths cannot speak of parting,” it continues. “In the morning, I awoke beside beauty’s shadow — her form sloppy and her legs pale. My scar lost, my lips cracked and dry. And we groaned simultaneously.”
Swalwell laughed off the reveal in a social media post.
“You think my poetry at 19 was bad? Wait til you see my 12-yr old diary,” he wrote on X.
As noted by the New York Post, as a college sophomore, Swalwell also “penned commentary that critics say expressed sympathy for convicted ‘cop killers,’ including Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier — two of the most controversial criminal cases of the past half-century, according to the Daily Mail”:
Abu-Jamal was convicted in the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer, while Peltier was found guilty in the 1975 killing of two FBI agents. Both cases have long drawn support from activists who argue they were politically prosecuted — but remain lightning rods in law enforcement circles.
The writings are now resurfacing as Swalwell, a former prosecutor who once led a hate crimes unit, seeks the governor’s mansion — prompting opponents to question how his youthful rhetoric squares with his later role in the criminal justice system.
A 2020 report in Axios noted that Swalwell had ties to an alleged Chinese spy, Christine Fang (a.k.a. “Fang Fang”), who had reportedly been cultivating relationships with California politicians on behalf of the Chinese government for years. Fang helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 congressional election bid and helped place an intern in his office. Swalwell cut ties with her in 2015 upon advice from U.S. intelligence.
In 2021, Breitbart News reported that “the U.S. Intelligence Community currently has in its possession a classified report that includes intricate and intimate details of the nature of the relationship” between Swalwell and Fang.
In 2023, the House Ethics Committee concluded the investigation into his relationship with Fang with no further censuring.
Swalwell has denied having any inappropriate relationship with Fang, maintaining that he was a target of the Chinese government.
