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phillipcrymble.bsky.social
phillip crymble
@phillipcrymble.bsky.social
1.5K followers 150 following 1.6K posts
poet | phd | umichwriters alum | fiddlehead poetry editor | record collector | author of not even laughter | one-armed bandit | he/him
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phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · Dec 22
A winter reverie.
THE STINGING FLY A Patch of Blue Jerry Goldsmith's title theme, its plaintive minor key arrangement, somehow welcoming the snow that falls outside our kitchen window. The rote activity of washing takes me miles away, and in that sweetest dream the music like a hand-embroidered counterpane—each note within the melody a cipher to be read and kept concealed. That we communicate at all is half mistake. I turn the thick LP, listen to the piano, all the silences it leaves— the hiss and crackle whispering of things so old they beggar history: a sound like fire in fields of wheat, the wind at sea. PHILLIP CRYMBLE
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Langston Hughes
Hope Sometimes when I'm lonely, Don't know why, Keep thinkin' I won't be lonely By and by.
February 11, 2026 at 1:58 AM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
So grateful to Carl Phillips for trusting us with his work. These new poems are absolutely mesmerizing.
cphillipspoet.bsky.social Carl Phillips @cphillipspoet.bsky.social · 13h
Thx to @phillipcrymble.bsky.social @fiddlehd.bsky.social for featuring some of my poems! Here’s one!
February 10, 2026 at 7:34 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Mary Ruefle
PERSONALIA When I was young, a fortune-teller told me that an old woman who wanted to die had accidentally become lodged in my body. Slowly, over time, and taking great care in following esoteric instructions, including laven- der baths and the ritual burial of keys in the backyard, I rid myself of her presence. Now I am an old woman who wants to die and lodged inside me is a young woman dy- ing to live; I work on her.
February 10, 2026 at 3:07 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Lisel Mueller
Asylum I cannot ask you to paint the tops of your bare mountains green or gentle your coasts to lessen my homesickness. Beggar, not chooser, I hand you the life you say I must leave at the border, bundled and tied. You riffle through it without looking, stamp it and put it out the back for the trash collector. Next, you call. I am free. I stand in the desert, heavy with what I smuggled in behind my eyes and under my tongue: memory and language; my rood and staff, my leper's rattle, my yellow star.
February 9, 2026 at 3:09 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
A late poem by Robert Bly for your Super Bowl Sunday
Sunday Afternoon The snow is falling, and the world is calm. The flakes are light, but they cool the world As they fall, and add to the calm of the house. It's Sunday afternoon. I am reading Longinus while the Super Bowl is on. The snow is falling, and the world is calm.
February 8, 2026 at 8:03 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Mary Ruefle, with the bunny content you didn't know you needed
The Bunny Gives Us a Lesson in Eternity We are a sad people, without hats. The history of our nation is tragically benign. We like to watch the rabbits screwing in the graveyard. We are fond of the little bunny with the bent ear who stands alone in the moonlight reading what little text there is on the graves. He looks quite desirable like that. He looks like the center of the universe. Look how his mouth moves mouthing the words while the others are busy making more of him. Soon the more will ask of him to write their love letters and he will oblige, using the language of our ancestors, those poor clouds in the ground, beloved by us who have been standing here for hours, a proud people after all.
February 8, 2026 at 2:34 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Louise Glück
CONFESSION To say I'm without fear— it wouldn't be true. I'm afraid of sickness, humiliation. Like anyone, I have my dreams. But I've learned to hide them, to protect myself from fulfillment: all happiness attracts the Fates' anger. They are sisters, savages— in the end, they have no emotion but envy.
February 8, 2026 at 12:03 AM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
So moved by this Carl Phillips poem in our new issue.
The Brokenness Itself Days that are random, coincident, the way leaves and light coincide, the way sounds do. Not everything is music. Days that can never come back. Black earth. Black earth. Is this who I must be, or maybe just what I am? — And the branches, shifting, heavy with fruit, in the wind.
February 7, 2026 at 12:05 AM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Looking forward to reading a few of the new Carl Phillips poems featured in our winter issue at tomorrow's launch event. Do join us in person if you can. Zoom link available by contacting the email address below.
fiddlehd.bsky.social The Fiddlehead @fiddlehd.bsky.social · 29d
It's time to celebrate the release of The Fiddlehead’s Winter issue!

Join us Sat, Feb 7, 2–3 PM (AT), in person at the Fredericton Public Library or online via Zoom for readings by Ariadne Asho (our 2025 Fiction Contest winner!), John McNeil, and José Teodoro.

@johnmcneil.bsky.social
February 6, 2026 at 7:45 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
What a poem.
ianduhig.bsky.social Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 5d
I posted elsewhere about a lady in one of my Leeds Irish Health and Homes workshops who wrote 'I've had dementia / for as long as I can remember'. It came back to me reading @ravoon.bsky.social's tremendous debut 'Dirt Rich', full of technically brilliant, emotionally-devastating work like this:
February 6, 2026 at 1:09 AM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Roxanna Bennett
The Terrible Lottery I love unusual things & stay in love with strangeness, have not outgrown my deficits. Full of holes rain pours into, I remain. Older, indecisive, unsound. I am portal, I am process: energy shining out that no one loves. My pain, you see, sightistly, is not visible. What is invisible is unreal, like love, hunger, rage. I've played the terrible lottery we all play, the odds increase as we age. You might say it's natural to disintegrate. Each day is hot or cold, clear or cloudy, blue-skied above. Everything is green, or not, furred or feathered. Done in by weather.
February 5, 2026 at 11:50 PM
Reposted by phillip crymble
susanlleary.bsky.social
🌸 Happy Pub Day 🌸 to MORE FLOWERS! None of this happens alone & I’m grateful to so many for their support in bringing this book to life!

In honor of the release, I’d also like to offer some light where we need it most, so please consider donating or ordering a book from @triohousepress.org!

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Happy Pub Day to MORE FLOWERS! SUPPORT MINNESOTA! SUPPORT TRIO HOUSE PRESS! SUPPORT MORE FLOWERS! DONATE any amount to a cause in support of Minnesota or PRE-ORDER / ORDER any book or e-book from Trio House Press, DM me the receipt, and I'll send you a copy of MORE FLOWERS! Thank you for supporting people in crisis who matter deeply to me and for supporting a beloved Minneapolis-based publisher! Love and gratitude to all.
February 1, 2026 at 4:34 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Katherine Mansfield, from Child Verses (1907)
WINTER SONG RAIN and wind, and wind and rain. Will the Summer come again? Rain on houses, on the street, Wetting all the people's feet. Though they run with might and main. Rain and wind, and wind and rain. Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow. Will the Winter never go? What do beggar children do With no fire to cuddle to, P'raps with nowhere warm to go? Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow. Hail and ice, and ice and hail, Water frozen in the pail. See the robins, brown and red, They are waiting to be fed. Poor dears; battling in the gale! Hail and ice, and ice and hail.
February 4, 2026 at 5:26 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
An early poem by Larry Levis
Airplanes I get a gun and go shoot an airplane full of holes, and stare at the thing on the runway until it's covered with rust. This takes years. I turn forty somewhere, waiting for the jet underneath me to clear its throat of burned starlings.
February 3, 2026 at 10:32 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
One more by the great Raymond Carver
FEAR Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive. Fear of falling asleep at night. Fear of not falling asleep. Fear of the past rising up. Fear of the present taking flight. Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night. Fear of electrical storms. Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek! Fear of dogs I've been told won't bite. Fear of anxiety! Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend. Fear of running out of money. Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this. Fear of psychological profiles. Fear of being late and fear of arriving before anyone else. Fear of my children's handwriting on envelopes. Fear they'll die before I do, and I'll feel guilty. Fear of having to live with my mother in her old age, and mine. Fear of confusion. Fear this day will end on an unhappy note. Fear of waking up to find you gone. Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough. Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love. Fear of death. Fear of living too long. Fear of death. I've said that.
February 2, 2026 at 3:43 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Raymond Carver, from All of Us: The Collected Poems (1996)
The Best Time of the Day Cool summer nights. Windows open. Lamps burning. Fruit in the bowl. And your head on my shoulder. These the happiest moments in the day. Next to the early morning hours, of course. And the time just before lunch. And the afternoon, and early evening hours. But I do love these summer nights. Even more, I think, than those other times. The work finished for the day. And no one who can reach us now. Or ever.
February 1, 2026 at 5:29 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Can't stop thinking about this Raymond Carver poem
THE CURRENT These fish have no eyes these silver fish that come to me in dreams, scattering their roe and milt in the pockets of my brain. But there's one that comes-- heavy, scarred, silent like the rest, that simply holds against the current, closing its dark mouth against the current, closing and opening as it holds to the current.
January 31, 2026 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by phillip crymble
dapowell.bsky.social
"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

--Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
January 31, 2026 at 12:41 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Raoul Fernandes, from the new issue of @thewalrus.ca
Speakerphone Your secret voice, / always a bit tired, lightly grazing / your throat, barely language To pray, not to ask, but to have the line open. To listen to the almost silence on the other end, to know your almost silence is being listened to as well (distant cars, clicks of a keyboard, a child laughing), to know your listening is being listened to (both sides on speakerphone, no one speaking) as you go about your respective days, tiresome appointments, dark highways. The sounds from either side coming through that narrow frequency range, the crackle and the hiss of this world, of that world. And OK, maybe a few words from you at the end of a hard day, a few words from the voice you haven't used: your secret voice, always a bit tired, lightly grazing your throat, barely language. You don't even know if it is coming from you or from the other side, the way when the leaves rustle we don't know if it's the wind or the tree that is speaking.
January 31, 2026 at 2:22 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
X.J. Kennedy, RIP
EPITAPH FOR A POSTAL CLERK Here lies wrapped up tight in sod Henry Harkins c/o God. On the day of Resurrection May be opened for inspection.
January 30, 2026 at 7:30 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Richard Brautigan, born on this day in 1935
WE WERE THE ELEVEN O'CLOCK NEWS We were the eleven o'clock news because while the rest of the world was going to hell we made love.
January 30, 2026 at 5:20 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Raymond Carver
MY CROW A crow flew into the tree outside my window. It was not Ted Hughes's crow, or Galway's crow. Or Frost's, Pasternak's, or Lorca's crow. Or one of Homer's crows, stuffed with gore, after the battle. This was just a crow. That never fit in anywhere in its life, or did anything worth mentioning. It sat there on the branch for a few minutes. Then picked up and flew beautifully out of my life.
January 30, 2026 at 12:56 AM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
Richard Wilbur
Orchard Trees, January It's not the case, though some might wish it so Who from a window watch the blizzard blow White riot through their branches vague and stark, That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark. They take affliction in until it jells To crystal ice between their frozen cells, And each of them is inwardly a vault Of jewels rigorous and free of fault, Unglimpsed by us until in May it bears A sudden crop of green-pronged solitaires.
January 28, 2026 at 8:40 PM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
David Ignatow, from Living is What I Wanted: Last Poems (1999)
Fixed or impermanent All these objects fixed in their places-- trees, houses, the declaration of independence, the bill of rights, the constitution--awaiting an end. The earth spins as if in search of its executioner, perhaps a comet sent at random by the law of impermanence, fixed in us like a bent tree.
January 28, 2026 at 12:19 AM
phillipcrymble.bsky.social
From Forty Poems Touching on Recent American History (1970)
THE DREAM Someone approaches to say his life is ruined and to fall down at your feet and pound his head upon the sidewalk. Blood spreads in a puddle. And you, in a weak voice, plead with those nearby for help; your life takes on his desperation. He keeps pounding his head. It is you who are fated; and you fall down beside him. It is then you are awakened, the body gone, the blood washed from the ground, the stores lit up with their goods. DAVID IGNATOW
January 26, 2026 at 2:41 PM