By: Pablo NerudaUnder the volcanoes, beside the snow-capped mountains, among the huge lakes, the fragrant, the silent, the tangled Chilean forest… My feet sink down into the dead leaves, a fragile twig crackles, the giant rauli trees rise in all their bristling height, a bird from the cold jungle pa
By: Jim HarrisonPhoto by Scott BaxterI used to tell students…the difference between poetry and you is you look in the mirror and say, “I am getting old,” but Shakespeare looks in the mirror and says, “Devouring Time, blunt thou thy lion’s paws.”—Jim HarrisonTo answer this question has put me into a
By: Jack MichelineText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI walk east of Bleecker the sky is blue on this Sunday evening there is something deeper than the earth there is something deeper than the stone cities there is something deeper than our existence than all the
The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art—Oscar WildeA work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want
By: Robert BlyText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI come from a long line of Protestant revolutionaries Who refused the old marriages with Rome, But I’m still hoping to sit at Moses’ side. Every night the old angels call to us, Promising good things. For centurie
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWho is he that shall control me? Why may not I act & speak & write & think with entire freedom? What am I to the Universe, or, the Universe, what is it to me? Who hath forged the chains of Wrong & Right, of Opinion & Cust
By: Julia VinogradText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOur wildness was a by-product, not the contrived and sour thing it became when people wanted it for its own sake, because it had been our publicity, but not us. We were simply too busy: taking drugs for religio
“Most of the young men of talent whom I have met in this country give one the impression of being somewhat demented. Why shouldn't they? They are living amidst spiritual gorillas, living with food and drink maniacs, success-mongers, gadget innovators, publicity hounds. God, if I were a young man tod
By: Arthur RimbaudText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedO my good! O my beautiful! Atrocious fanfare where I won’t stumble! enchanted rack whereon I am stretched! Hurrah for the amazing work and the marvelous body, for the first time! It began amid the laughte
By: Mary OliverText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedYou do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yo
By: Alejandra PizarnikPoetry is where everything happens. Like love, humor, suicide, and every fundamentally subversive act, poetry ignores everything but its own freedom and its own truth. To say “freedom” and “truth” in reference to the world in which we live (or don’t live) is to tell a lie. It i
By: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919 – 2021)Photo: Janet Fries//Getty ImagesText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don’t mind a touch of hell now and then j
By: Dr. Alexander LowenArt: Kavan the KidWe want to be more alive and feel more, but we are afraid of it. Our fear of life is seen in the way we keep busy so as not to feel, keep running so as not to face ourselves, or get high on liquor or drugs so as not to sense our being. Because we are afraid o
By: Erik RittenberryPhoto: Erik RittenberryThe capacities by which we can gain insights into higher worlds lie dormant within each one of us. —Rudolf SteinerThe creative act… is a self-discovery within the fullness of Divine life. —Nicholas BerdyaevText within this block will maintain its original s
By: Fernando PessoaBoys in a Pasture, 1874, Homer, WinslowText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedA verse repeating A cool breeze, Summer in the fields, And the soul's courtyard Vacant and sunlit... Or, in winter, the snowy Summits in the distance, The fireside where
By: Erik RittenberryMake voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else. —Tennessee WilliamsI live in Florida, and it’s a beautiful place, especially when you get away from the big cities and the Disneyfication of everything. Whenever I’m not working, reading, writing, or procuring poetic material for
By: Fernando PessoaDown the steps of my dreams and my weariness, descend from your unreality, descend and be my substitute for the world. — PessoaEach of us is intoxicated by different things. There’s intoxication enough for me in just living. Drunk on feeling I drift but never stray. If it’s time t
By: Oliver SacksText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedTo live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. Text w
Counterculture rebel Richard Fariña died on the cusp of fame. His only novel remains essential reading for literary psychonauts with a penchant for the absurdArticle by Mariella Rudi.Originally Published by DoubleBlind // Art + Culture. You can sign up for their amazing Newsletter here: https://doub
By: Alejandra PizarnikText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAnd it was then that with a tongue dead and cold in the mouth he sang the song others allowed him to sing in this world of obscene gardens and shadows coming at unseemly hours to remind him of songs of his
