Vox Populi

A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. Over 15,000 daily subscribers. Over 7,000 archived posts.

Maryfrances Wagner: Prompt

What if we want to tell a real secret?

April 27, 2022 · 4 Comments

Video: Telling Your Secrets Can Set You Free | Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos never planned to write a book about her experiences as a heroin addict and professional dominatrix, but the result of exposing and making sense out of her dark history had profound and unexpected results. By making her darkness visible, she reached thousands of strangers and became closer with her own family. “This kind of honesty,” she claims, “makes room for every kind of love.”

December 18, 2021 · 2 Comments

Michael Simms: Writing Prompt #7 | Jumping into the Mud

Here’s an exercise which I call Jumping into the Mud although it’s sometimes called by the more prosaic name automatic writing. The exercise helps to loosen my imagination, and sometimes a decent poem results as well.

September 4, 2021 · 13 Comments

Naomi Shihab Nye & Michael Simms: Writing Prompt # 6 | Dear Vaccine

As we enter our new lives
will we remember
the faster we moved
the sicker we got?

March 27, 2021 · 5 Comments

Jena Schwartz: Writing Prompt #5 | One Little Acorn

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

March 20, 2021 · 4 Comments

Jena Schwartz: Writing Prompt # 4 |The Book of Secrets

I find this to be such a comforting notion, that if we listen carefully, we can remember things we knew before we were born.

January 23, 2021 · 3 Comments

Beth Peyton: Writing Prompt # 3 | Rhododendrons and Kangaroos

Pick up three objects from a shelf, or a mantel, or your kitchen counter and describe them in detail. Why did you choose them? What stories do they contain?

January 2, 2021 · 3 Comments

Valerie Bacharach: Gratitude Journal

I was sure that I had failed my mother, unable to keep her in her home, as I had once promised.

December 29, 2020 · 6 Comments

Rosaly DeMaios Roffman: Writing Prompt #2 | An Imaginary Phone Call

Make an imaginary phone call to some person or thing to tell them something you never told them.

December 5, 2020 · 4 Comments

Michael Simms: Writing Prompt #1 | The Quotidian Poem

This post marks the beginning of a new irregular feature in Vox Populi. I hope readers of Vox Populi, many of whom are writers, will find the prompt helpful in stimulating their creativity.

November 14, 2020 · 25 Comments

Adrian Blevins: How I wrote The Brass Girl Brouhaha

I wrote The Brass Girl Brouhaha by tattooing the word WRONG across my heart to help me muster the strength I’d need to argue with a world that wanted me to say “hey, y’all!” in a hill-country accent sipping tea under a dogwood in a pink smock smattered with etchings of ivy.

September 18, 2020 · 1 Comment

Michael Simms: Variations on Vallejo

They killed you in Memphis on a Thursday.
On a balcony with your friends
You held your hands on the railing
And looked over the long field
Into the next life.

June 20, 2020 · 6 Comments

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