Jane Taylor: Poverty
O then, let the wealthy and gay
But see such a hovel as this,
That in a poor cottage of clay
They may know what true misery is.
Most Popular Vox Populi Posts for 2021
At the end of each year, I enjoy compiling a list of the Vox Vopuli posts which attracted the most viewers. This year, for the first time, I’m also noting the single most popular post in each category since VP was founded in April, 2014. If you see an author or title that looks interesting, I hope you’ll visit (or re-visit) the post. Thank you for being part of our community! — Michael Simms, editor
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Evening
Gone. Another day gone. Its chest-
shredding tragedies or frivolous whims equally
scavenged by dusk. Soon the wind will rest
in the messy trellis of my tree.
Baron Wormser: Once
I was a candle
Carried upstairs downstairs
One room to another
Kari Gunter-Seymour: Conflagration
I hoped returning
would spark memories, fill her with light,
the way the heat of day warms the bones.
Amy Lowell: A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M.
Opposite my window,
The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-coloured night.
Michael Simms: Tree of Life
God, like a lazy cop,
Never seems to be around
When you need Him
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Autumnal Equinox
It seemed like
everyone I knew had something
precious to give away
Carl Jung: The Rainmaker
There was a drought in a village in China. They sent for a rainmaker who was known to live in the farthest corner of the country, far away.
Rachel Hadas: Humble Herb is Rival to Prozac
The little notebook, its pages an eye-ease greenish tint, with my staggering penciled captions labeling every blessed thing, each flower picked and pressed and taped down to the page, contains more than specimens of wildflowers from a Vermont meadow. It encloses the first summer I remember.
Abby Zimet: Slipping Free of the Shame To Say His Name, Now More Than Ever
If he’d been allowed to live his “one wild and precious life,” Sunday July 25 would have been the 80th birthday of Emmett Till, who at 14 was kidnapped, whipped, … Continue reading
Robert Bernard Hass: Oedipus in Thebes
When he left the palace, the streets were nearly empty
Save for the women wailing at the altar, rending air
With sobs and litanies, the smoke from their incense pots
Thick and fragrant, perfuming the shrouded dead.
Federico García Lorca: New York (Office and Denunciation)
I know there are mountains and eyeglasses
And wisdom. But I didn’t come to see the sky.
I’m here to see the clouded blood,
the blood that sweeps machines over waterfalls
and the soul toward the cobra’s tongue.
