Vox Populi

A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 6,000,000 visitors since 2014 and over 9,000 archived posts.

Video: The Affected

Passengers and crew on a commercial flight question their ethics when an attempt to stop a deportation occurs on their flight minutes before take-off.

January 6, 2024 · 4 Comments

Jean Toomer: Banking Coal

Somehow the fire was furnaced,
And then the time was ripe for some to say,
“Right banking of the furnace saves the coal.”
I’ve seen them set to work, each in his way

January 5, 2024 · 7 Comments

Abe Louise Young: New Seeds for Old Stories

When I was a child, everything I heard & read about Israel was aspirational. We saved our quarters in cardboard boxes emblazoned, “Plant Trees In Israel!” People said, “Next year in Jerusalem!” to mean goodbye, to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

January 4, 2024 · 19 Comments

Jeffrey D. Sachs: US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption

The $1.5 trillion in military outlays each year is the scam that keeps on giving—to the military-industrial complex and the Washington insiders—even as it impoverishes and endangers America and the … Continue reading

January 2, 2024 · 7 Comments

Robert Frost: Revelation

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.

December 29, 2023 · 3 Comments

DR. RUPA MARYA, et al: There’s No Justification for Destroying Gaza’s Health Infrastructure

We wrote the following essay in response to JAMA’s promotion of ethical ambiguity around bombing hospitals. It was rejected for publication—yet another act of institutional silencing.

December 29, 2023 · 8 Comments

Vox Populi: Most Popular Posts of 2023

We now have approximately 18,000 email subscribers, one third outside the United States, and our posts are picked up by social media where they often go viral. For example, Zeina Azzam’s poem Write My Name, published in November 2023, has been translated into Arabic, Spanish, French, and Japanese, as well as other languages, and read by millions. 

December 26, 2023 · 8 Comments

Charles Davidson: Rachel Weeping at Bethlehem

“Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had hard labor. . . . As her soul was … Continue reading

December 25, 2023 · Leave a comment

Video: Nick Cave | Forothermore

This short documentary presents the work of wildly imaginative artist, designer and dancer Nick Cave who expresses his liberation on the dance floor as a queer Black man.

December 23, 2023 · 8 Comments

Nasser Rabah: On the Birthday of the War

When I return from the war, if I do,
don’t look into my eyes,
do not see what I saw.

December 22, 2023 · 13 Comments

Arlene Weiner: December Vigil

I think of Jeff and Mike, who won’t need
next year’s calendars, Mike saying
These are my last poems. Tomorrow
is not promised, some people say.

December 21, 2023 · 2 Comments

Letter from South Gaza, 12/13/2023

Dear [Name Withheld]: The situation in the North is getting worse and worse day by day. They manipulate the news. They play with the scenes. The Israeli forces break into … Continue reading

December 20, 2023 · 13 Comments

Paul Christensen: Pomegranates in Winter

Snow reminds me of the chalky blackboards of my childhood, the ones I was required to wash with a fat sponge and a bucket of water. A nun would occasionally check up on me to see that my labors were done in earnest.

December 19, 2023 · 2 Comments

Richard Michelson: Three Poems

Today, I am weary of my soul, forever dragging behind me, 
clanging for attention like tin cans left tied to a coupe fender    
long after the sacred vows.

December 17, 2023 · 4 Comments

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