Crisosto Apache

Anne Carson, The Art of Poetry No. 88 “I write to find out what I think about something.”

"[...] this capturing of the surface of emotional fact is useful for other people in that it jolts them into thinking, into doing their own act of understanding." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5...

Hermann Hesse on the Three Types of Readers and the Most Transcendent Form of Reading “At the hour when our imagination and our ability to associate are at their height, we really no longer read what is printed on the paper but swim in a stream of impulses and inspirations tha…

"Hesse offers a hierarchical taxonomy predicated on the same sentiment. He outlines three key types, which can similarly coexist within a single reader over the course of a lifetime, [...]".
www.themarginalian.org/2016/07/11/h...

Shifting the Silence to Find the Meaning: 95-Year-Old Artist, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on How to Live and How to Die “The universe makes a sound — is a sound. In the core of this sound there’s a silence, a silence that creates that sound, which is not its opposite, but its inseparable soul… Silence is…

"When we name things simply, with words preceding their meaning, a cosmic narration takes place. Does the discovery of origins remove the dust?" --Etel Adnan (1925-2021).
www.themarginalian.org/2021/11/16/e...

YouTube video by Raymond Foye Bob Kaufman Reading Malvinas Cafe, SF, December 6, 1974 by Horace Washington

"Bob Kaufman Reading Malvinas Cafe, SF, December 6, 1974 by Horace Washington"
youtu.be/ZlWwkaDNZQQ?...

John Ashbery, The Art of Poetry No. 33 “I often wonder if I am suffering from some mental dysfunction because of how weird and baffling my poetry seems to so many people and sometimes to me too.”

"I don't think I ever decided on a career as a poet. I began by writing a few little verses, but I never thought any of them would be published or that I would go on to publish books." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3...

Nathaniel Mackey, The Art of Poetry No. 107 “By making breath more evident, more material, more dwelled-upon, they make black breath matter, implicitly insist that black lives matter.”

"The song does remember the deceased, and it’s the song that helps the deceased move on—to ascend, in the words of the poem, to the next life.[...] apply it to senses of transition [...]." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7...

The Third Thing: Poet Donald Hall on the Secret to Lasting Love “Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment.”

"(Donald) Hall considers the secret to the kind of lasting love that blooms between the mundane and the magical." www.themarginalian.org/2022/07/13/d...

Henri Cole, The Art of Poetry No. 98 “In truth, I’m still slightly embarrassed to say, I am a poet. I’d rather say, I make poems.”

"A confessional poem is more diary-like and confined to the here and now and without much aesthetic dignity." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6...

W. H. Auden, The Art of Poetry No. 17 On hippies: “What I do like about them is that they have tried to revive the spirit of ‘Carnival.’ But I'm afraid that when they renounce work entirely, the fun turns ugly.”

"To teach creative writing—I think that’s dangerous. [...] —where a poet who was very busy got students to finish his poems for him. Then you’d really be teaching, and you’d be responsible, of course, since the results would go out under the poet’s name." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3...

Gnostic Ironies: New Poetry by Nathaniel Mackey and Fanny Howe - Image Journal Like Mackey, [Howe] is forced to interpret the historical recurrence of evil as cruelly fated; human beings are the unwitting playthings of what she calls, in Manimal Woe, “the mystery of repetition.”

"[...] there is something built into our national system, self-destruction, that goes round and round; repetition without progress; evolution of disagreements." imagejournal.org/article/gnos...

Love After Love: Derek Walcott’s Poetic Ode to Relearning to Be at Home in Ourselves After Heartbreak “Sit. Feast on your life.”

"On an archival On Being episode titled “Opening to Our Lives,” mindfulness pioneer Jon Kabat-Zinn reads Walcott’s masterpiece — undoubtedly one of the greatest, most soul-stretching poems ever written." www.themarginalian.org/2015/04/21/l...

Waking Up: David Whyte on the Power of Poetry and Silence as Portal to Presence “The object in meditation and all of our contemplative disciplines is silence… in order for you to perceive something other than yourself… Poetry is the verbal art-form by which w…

"Poetry interrupts the momentum of story, unweaves the narrative thread with which we cocoon our inner worlds." www.themarginalian.org/2021/04/30/d...

Jess Walter Eats Breakfast Three or Four Times While Writing (and Other Literary Tidbits) Jess Walter’s novel, So Far Gone, is available now from Harper, so we asked him a few questions about writer’s block, writing advice, unexpected routines, and more. * Who do you most wish would rea…

"What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers? (Interviewer)
The sheer number of breakfasts I eat. (Jess Walter)" lithub.com/jess-walters...

In Praise of Shadows: Ancient Japanese Aesthetics and Why Every Technology Is a Technology of Thought “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.”

"[...] the zenith of Japanese aesthetics is deeply rooted in the glorious imperfection of the present moment and its relationship to the realities of the past: [...]". www.themarginalian.org/2015/05/28/i...

How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock. Walk …

"And although we are “creatures shaped by the planet’s rocky logic,” we are also creatures shaped by the myriad mercies of time, saved over and over by the leap beyond logic that is trusting time." www.themarginalian.org/2025/06/21/s...

A Parliament of Owls and a Murder of Crows: How Groups of Birds Got Their Names, with Wondrous Vintage Illustrations by Brian Wildsmith Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other what the world is and what we are, for conveying the blueness of blue and the wonder of being…

"A great many of these company terms originate in one of the first books printed in English after the invention of the Gutenberg Press: the Boke of Seynt Albans [Book of Saint Albans], also known as The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blasing of Arms." www.themarginalian.org/2024/01/04/b...

It Happened Here: Remembering One of America’s First Modern School Shootings, 50 Years Later On the afternoon of December 30, 1974, Anthony Barbaro, a well-respected honors student at Olean High School in Olean, New York, entered the school armed with two rifles, went to a third-floor wind…

"[...] little pink clouds over the cascading hills at sunset and their patchwork shadows across farmland cut through with meandering creeks, [...] framed by vibrant green leaves against the dusty nightfall, it becomes obvious why these are called the Enchanted Mountains." lithub.com/it-happened-...

Winners and Losers: The Death of the Poetry Critic Ben Wilkinson on the current state of reviewing culture

"Some have suggested the only criticism poetry requires is poetry itself, but this stance overlooks the ways in which all art (even poetry!) enjoys an uneasy relationship with commerce and market forces and so is always in need of honest redress." northseapoets.substack.com/p/winners-an...

Between Science and Magic: How Hummingbirds Hover at the Edge of the Possible How a tiny creature faster than the Space Shuttle balances the impossible equation of extreme fragility and superhuman strength.

"Essential as pollinators and essential as muses to poets, hummingbirds animate every indigenous spiritual mythology of their native habitats and are sold as wearable trinkets [...]." www.themarginalian.org/2021/05/07/s...

Mushrooms: The Story Behind Sylvia Plath’s Poem About the Tenacity of the Creative Spirit “Our foot’s in the door.”

"My optimism rises. No longer do I ask the impossible. I am happy with smaller things, and perhaps that is a sign, a clue… Every day is a renewed prayer that the god exists, that he will visit with increased force and clarity." -Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
www.themarginalian.org/2022/10/05/m...

The Life of Silas Soule - Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

"Captain Silas Soule's presence at both of these important peace meetings reinforced the decisions he made at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, when he showed extraordinary courage in refusing to participate in the massacre of the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho." www.nps.gov/sand/learn/h...

Charles Simic, The Art of Poetry No. 90 “A ‘truth’ detached and purified of pleasures of ordinary life is not worth a damn in my view. Every grand theory and noble sentiment ought to be first tested in the kitchen—and then in bed, of course...

"The following interview was conducted in November 2004, at my flat in Highbury, London. Simic was over to promote the publication of his Selected Poems: 1963–2001, and to read at Poetry International." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5...

"In 1849, a little over 175 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was found dead in a Baltimore gutter under mysterious circumstances very likely related to violent election fraud. It was an ignominious end to a life marked by hardship, alcoholism, and loss." www.openculture.com/2024/06/edga...

Saying the Unsayable Poet and novelist Fanny Howe is an experimental writer’s experimental writer, the author of dozens of books, one who remains publicly, committedly Catholic.

RIP Fanny Howe (1940-2025). "Saying the unsayable has been Howe’s task since she started as a poet, and it continues in Love and I. Sometimes this takes the form of speaking political and social truths about America [...]". www.commonwealmagazine.org/i-loved-lovi...

The image is of a poem called Number 8, Fireworks. from Crisosto's poetry book Ghostword.

My 4th of July poem “8. Fireworks” from my book “Ghostword” (Gnashing Teeth Publishing). 1st appearing in “Presence: The Heartspeak of Indigenous Poets”, 11-23-18 curated for the Rumpus by Tanaya Winder (Duckwater Shoshone).
gnashingteethpublishing.com/books/ghostw...

therumpus.net/2018/11/23/p...

Thursday, July 3, 2025 – On film: a personal portrait and a summer blockbuster » Native America Calling A documentary filmmaker’s chance encounter with the Blackfoot man who became a social media sensation in connection with the phrase “skoden” (“let’s go then”), turns into a moving profile of Pernell B...

"[...] the Blackfoot man who became a social media sensation in connection with the phrase “skoden” (“let’s go then”), turns into a moving profile of Pernell Bad Arm."
www.nativeamericacalling.com/thursday-jul...

Vision of the Womb and Vision of the Brain: H.D. on the Two Kinds of Seeing and the Key to Over-mind Consciousness “One must be a seer, make oneself a seer,” Arthur Rimbaud wrote, “by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses.” As more and more of our senses are being a…

"The minds of the two lovers merge, interact in sympathy of thought." -- H.D. (September 10, 1886–September 27, 1961).
www.themarginalian.org/2025/07/02/h...

Hermann Hesse on Solitude, the Value of Hardship, the Courage to Be Yourself, and How to Find Your Destiny “Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny.”

"You were made to be yourselves. You were made to enrich the world with a sound, a tone, a shadow." --Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877–August 9, 1962). www.themarginalian.org/2019/01/15/h...

Acclaimed poet Arthur Sze on bridging Western and Chinese traditions Arthur Sze, one of the most acclaimed poets of our time, is celebrated for exploring the natural world, the human condition and connections between cultures. A second-generation Chinese American based...

Arthur Sze reinforced my commitment to writing. I am grateful for his continued inspiration. I was a student of his from 1990 to 92. I still consider myself a student of his.
www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

James Baldwin’s Advice on Writing “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”

"Endurance, indeed, is perhaps the sole common denominator among successful authors."
www.themarginalian.org/2016/02/08/j...