Toi Derricotte Quotes & Sayings

The job of the artist is not to resolve or beautify, but to hold complexities, to see and make clear. — Toi Derricotte

Poetry asks people to have values, form opinions, care about some other part of experience besides making money and being successful on the job. — Toi Derricotte

I hate it when, after I let a white person know they've said something racist, I end up having to listen for hours to their life. — Toi Derricotte

What is more punished
among the angry than anger? among the unsatisfied than desire?
among the hate-filled
than hate? among the frightened than fear?
— Toi Derricotte

My Father Still Sleeping After Surgery
In spite of himself,
my father loved me. In spite
of the hands that beat me, in spite
of the mouth that kept silent, in spite
of the face that turned cruel
as a gold Chinese king,
he could not control the love
that came out of him.
The body is monumental, a colossus
through which he breathes.
His hands crawl over his stomach
jerkily as sand crabs on five legs;
he makes a fist
like the fist of a newborn. — Toi Derricotte

A picture in a book,
a lynching.
The bland faces of men who watch
a Christ go up in flames, smiling,
as if he were a hooked
fish, a felled antelope, some
wild thing tied to boards and burned.
His charred body
gives off light
a halo
burns out of him.
His face is scorched featureless;
the hair matted to the scalp like feathers.
One man stands with his hand on his hip,
another with his arm
slung over the shoulder of a friend,
as if this moment were large enough
to hold affection. — Toi Derricotte

These are the stories of travelers on a spiritual quest between worlds. Part mythmaker, part poet, Omar Castaeda is an original, and these stories are unlike any in our literature. — Toi Derricotte