Essie Parrish

[In putting together a transnational and historical anthology of the Americas North and South (now in progress), Javier Taboada and I are looking also at founders and representatives of new or revived American-based religions, who speak and write in forms of prophetic and visionary language that resembles what we otherwise would think of as open-verse poetry. In the present instance the outsider poets on display are Joanna Kitchel, a follower of Mother Anne Lee and the Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming (a.k.a. Shakers); El Niño Fidencio (Fidencio Constantino Síntora), a mid–twentieth-century healer and cult figure from Mexico; and Essie Parrish, cofounder of the Pomo Indian “dreamer religion” of California. The images above are of Fidencio and Parrish. (J.R.)]