Vox Populi: The Most Popular Posts of 2024
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Chana Bloch: The New World
That’s the old country for you:
they ate with their hands, went hungry to bed,
slept in their stink. When pain knocked,
they opened the door.
Joseph Bathanti: High Mass
Winter Sundays,
when my father was on strike from steel,
he and my mother woke late,
then rose and prepared for high mass at Saints Peter and Paul.
Linda Parsons: Two Poems for Christmas
the light hasn’t always been easy to find—
haloed fires of childhood, my walk
on coals to the marriage pyre, parents
passed to flame and ash. All have sparked
the change ahead, all have lit the way.
William Butler Yeats: The Magi
Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky
Barbara Hamby: Ode to the ‘Messiah’, Thai Horror Movies, and Everything I Can’t Believe
When I decide to go to hear Handel’s Messiah in London
at the composer’s parish church, my husband says
he’d rather see a Thai horror movie, so we plan to meet later
at our favorite Moroccan lair
Ma Yongbo: I Have Always Been in Love With You (English and Chinese)
Sometimes I suddenly stop on the road
feel a breeze brushing my ears
That’s you passing by
Michelle Bitting: Savior
Who will be called to save the world?
No one knows
but the beast rides farther into green,
its mane swaying to the trill of a violin.
Video: Hildegard of Bingen | Love Aboundeth In All Things
There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words.
Michael Simms: Jubilate
Now I shall praise our dog Josie
the bodhisattva of our household
the perfect embodiment
of devotion, always present
in spontaneous awe
Richard Hoffman: Looking at Photos of Gaza | November, 2024
I am no longer bewildered by cruelty,
have not been speechless facing suffering,
but I have nothing now to say to anyone
to move them to change their minds.
Kathryn Levy: Three Poems
Whatever you searched for
will never be found. Whatever
memories hidden in the
chest in the attic mustn’t be taken
out anymore.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: About My Birthday
when the last leaves let go, let go,
have all let go, & it’s almost winter again —
don’t remember my birthday
Adam Patric Miller: How (Not) to Wear a Keffiyeh to School
Fold the keffiyeh in a triangle, lift it to your face, lift your arms about your head holding the ends of the longest edge, then wrap it so the triangle covers your face, tie the long ends together behind your head, letting the patterns drape over your shoulders.
