James Hartz

James Hartz passed away on July 21, 2025. He was born in Bay City, Michigan on June 25, 1944 to Earl and Elizabeth (Snyder) Hartz.

His family moved to Florida when he was young. In his words, he had a "Huckleberry Finn childhood." From there, the family moved to Detroit.

Jim was an excellent athlete-both baseball and football-and after high school, he was recruited by Bo Schembechler to play football at Miami of Ohio University.

His education was short-circuited as he became active in the antiwar movement during the Vietnam war. He operated a bookstore in Cincinnati, Ohio; worked with Noam Chomsky's anti-war organization "Resist"; did draft-counseling and gave anti-war lectures at churches.

Jim went to live as a "brother" at the Abbey of Gethsemani, Thomas Merton's monastery near Bardstown, KY. There he studied Merton's writings and read the book: "Meditation in Action" by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Influenced by that book and after meeting Trungpa Rinpoche, he became a Buddhist. He moved to Boulder in 1976 and became a practitioner and meditation instructor with the Buddhist community.

Jim got his master's degree at St John's in Santa Fe; and worked toward a PhD at Antioch College in Ohio. He was a poet and a scholar. He lived in San Francisco for several years in the 1980s, where he was Literary Director at Intersection for the Arts. Subsequent to that, he became Director of The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archive at San Francisco State University. He also taught a graduate level seminar in poetics theory and poetry writing.

And he collected books...many books: on the Dharma, politics and poetry-his favorite topics to study and discuss.

Jim returned to Boulder in the early 90s, and lived at Marpa House and the Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center. Then moved to Clarksville, TN to care for his elderly mother for several years. He came back to Boulder in 2008 where he was surrounded with community and friends.

He is survived by his brother, Thomas Hartz of Clarksville, TN, and three nieces.