Vox Populi
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Shaheen Dil: From Letters to my Younger Self
Ann Arbor, 1960
Letter 15
How you loved those Twinkies in the lunchbox.
Today my three-card spread says there’s a Twinkie in my future again,
since Mercury squares Saturn and conjoins the Sun,
or is it the Sun marking the Solstice?
In any case, it’s a good day for spiritual activities
and connecting deeply with cream-filled sponge-cake,
the kind from our high-school lunch bag,
the kind which will outlast the apocalypse.
There’s a corner of my taste buds
that still longs for the mushy sweetness you loved,
as if it could make me you again—
lithe, lean, and full of promise—
as if I could reach out and touch the stars,
as if the universe were not twirling away.
~~~~
Poughkeepsie, New York, 1969
Letter 31
Our poems burned on the bridge
over Sunset Lake—
edges curling to the sky
like a prayer gone wrong.
The match flickered, your fingers
scorched like songs
not ready for the madness of light,
the nearness of others
who could not know this secret life,
this scent of smoke—
this trembling on the brink
of a run not started,
this brief encounter
with divinity.
Copyright 2025 Shaheen Dil
Shaheen Dil was born in Bangladesh and lives in Pittsburgh. She has published three collections of poetry: Acts of Deference (Fakel 2016), The Boat-maker’s Art (Kelsay Books 2024), and Letters to My Younger Self (Gyroscope Press April 2025).
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As has happened plenty with Vox Populi during my relatively short time as a subscriber, I have just been offered the gift of a new poet to admire. This boggles my mind, because I have been deeply embedded in the land of contemporary poetry for quite a while, and my inbox is afloat in daily poems from various sources…I always wonder how is it possible there are so many fine voices I am encountering here for the first time? But that’s not the point: the point is, thank you, Shaheen Dil, for these two Letters, and (as always) thank you to Michael for highlighting more wonderful work.
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Thanks, Annie! Glad to have you on board!
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Thank you all so much for these wonderful comments! And thank you, Michael, for bringing us all together.
Shaheen
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These are wonderful and unlike being sated by a Twinkie, leave me wanting more. I wonder how many of us are brought back to memories by the smoke, the scent, the youth?
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Me, for one!
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I love the sensuality of the two letters: the tactile realities, smell of smoke, taste of spongy youth. But also the leavening of spirituality, and the mystery of why burning poems on a bridge. Would love to share a look at more of her “letters”. Do you wonder if her younger self ever answers?
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Lovely comment, Jim. I agree: the poems are sensual, spiritual and mysterious, beguilingly so
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I think the “letters” are wonderful! Shaheen is new to me, and I love what’s on her mind and in her soul. Beautiful poetry to open this morning.
Thankyou
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Thanks, Sean!
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