Michael Simms: Brotherly Love
we’re afraid to look deprivation
in the eye, resent admitting our own dumb luck
Michael Simms: No
No is not nothing. When everything has been taken from you, no is all you have left.
Video: Yusef Komunyakaa Reads “Facing It”
Yusef Komunyakaa reads his poem “Facing It” about seeing the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial wall in Washington, D.C. through his eyes as a war veteran and contemporary poet.
T. R. Hummer: My Wife in Chemo
The house of healing is crystalline, clean
as the diagram of a carbon molecule drawn
With a laser beam on one facet of a diamond.
Danielle DeTiberus: In the Middle of Fucking You, I Pause
Twenty years together and yet
You were new to me again.
Carlos Saavedra: Movements and Leaders Have Seasons — It’s Important To Know Which One You’re In
Learning to attune to the cycles of our own leadership can help us know when to do the right thing at the right time.
Video: “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye
In this short animated video, Naomi Shihab Nye reads her famous poem “Kindness.”
Wendy Mnookin: A Love Poem
I don’t want to complain about my mother, because she did a lot of nice things. Some very considerate things. She came to Boston when my younger son was born … Continue reading
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.
