Swalwell's College Poem Resurfaces Amid Governor Bid

A sexually explicit poem written by Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell during his college years has resurfaced as the California congressman launches his campaign for governor. The piece, composed when Swalwell was a 19-year-old sophomore at Campbell University in North Carolina around 2000, appeared in the campus literary magazine, The Lyricist.

Titled "Hungover From Burgundy," the poem describes an intense romantic encounter between two figures. It portrays them chasing each other before meeting atop a hotel, where the interaction turns physical in what the narrator calls "formless and magnificent" intimacy marked by a "flurry of limbs and nails." The account includes the woman biting the narrator's arm, leaving a scar he describes as beautiful, followed by a kiss that escalates dramatically: "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." The poem concludes with the pair waking the next morning beside each other, their forms disheveled and pale, groaning simultaneously in the aftermath.

Swalwell, who contributed to the university's student newspaper, the...