Stuart Kestenbaum: Prayer for Joy
Every butterfly knows that the end
is different from the beginning
and that it is always a part
of a longer story
Naomi Shihab Nye: Generations
At the end of an unseasonably warm day
New Year’s Eve 2017
I stood in my kitchen holding
one wooden spoon.
Vox Populi: The Most Popular posts of 2025
Since mainland China blocks western media, I was very surprised a few months ago when a flood of visitors from China began clicking on Vox Populi.
Chard deNiord: Erebus
This is the river’s music that still plays
like the wind in its accompaniment
to the only song I know how to sing
Barbara Crooker: When I Gave Away My Tent
…some protection from sun, snow, rain in this, the very imperfect
twenty-first century where working two jobs isn’t enough to get
an apartment in a country where too much is not enough.
Michael T. Young: How to Read a Poem
The experience of reading a poem should not start in the meaning first, but in the feelings it evokes just hearing those words, in the images, and rhythms carrying you along, much like a good song.
David Kirby: The Way I See It
I wonder if our bosses have any idea how much time we spend
thinking about them. My friend Silvia can’t sleep because
she can’t remember the name of her boss from twenty years ago.
Ma Yongbo: A Dream at the Beginning of Winter (English & Chinese)
The broad leaves of the sycamore tree fall onto the small car,
once all the leaves have fallen, the car’s colour turns white,
receiving signals from the stars of the departed
Sean Sexton: Elysium
I am ready, like Basho — to turn away
from beauty today as he once refused to
consider Mt Fuji, stark in the distance,
one more time — not to be bothered by
the ineluctable.
Diane Wakoski: Braised Leeks & Framboise
The Saturnian taste
of old raspberries, and the moon’s
clear-fingered insistence
of leek. These two intangible things
I owe you
Naomi Shihab Nye: Every day as a wide field, every page
And there were so many more poems to read!
Countless friends to listen to.
We didn’t have to be in the same room—
the great modern magic.
David Kirby: Significant Pieces of Information
Did you know monkeys peel bananas from the bottom up?
Ever try it that way? It’s easier. Monkeys know this.
People know it, too, or at least they do now, but
they don’t do it. People tend to be set in their ways
Ron Smith: Berlioz
“I was finishing
my cantata when the revolution broke out …
dashed off the final pages … to the sound of
stray bullets coming over the roofs and pattering
on the wall outside my window….”
