Vox Populi

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

Ma Yongbo: Frost on the Window

It is spring now and the frost on the window is gradually thinning.

March 24, 2026 · 32 Comments

Senator Bernie Sanders: I spoke to AI agent Claude

I spoke to Anthropic’s AI agent Claude about AI collecting massive amounts of personal data and how that information is being used to violate our privacy rights. What an AI agent says about the dangers of AI is shocking and should wake us up.

March 23, 2026 · 14 Comments

Dorianne Laux: The Optimism of French Toast

I think of my Acadian ancestors
landing on the shores of Nova Scotia, divining
logs from the deep woods, fashioning windows,
hanging laundry from two oars dug into sand—
the flags of domesticity flayed by the wind.

March 23, 2026 · 31 Comments

Michael Simms: Trump’s Nightmare

Who is James Talarico, and why does the Trump administration fear him?

March 22, 2026 · 26 Comments

Al Ortolani: Prayer Boat

Each night I say a prayer of thanks
to some higher power, a thanks for
the chance to be alive as a thinking
being, for the family and friends
that surround me

March 22, 2026 · 24 Comments

H.C. Palmer: An Old Kansas Farm Boy’s Take on Gary Snyder’s “Hay for the Horses” or Why I Became a Poet

In the early 1950s I worked summers as a part of a team of 4 high school football players bucking bales of alfalfa hay for a local rancher in Southeast Kansas. We moved over 1,000 bales from his hay meadow to the loft in his barn each cutting.

March 21, 2026 · 35 Comments

Lisel Mueller: Monet Refuses the Operation

I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see

March 21, 2026 · 25 Comments

Barbara Crooker: For My Grandchildren

We sat on the porch swing in the fragrant dark
scented by roses and lilies, knowing we were
about to lose everything, but powerless to stop it.

March 20, 2026 · 45 Comments

Frank O’Hara: Autobiographia Literaria

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

March 20, 2026 · 18 Comments

Lawrence Wray: In Line at the Butcher

Papers blow and clot the gutters. The faces are those I’m used to from as long ago as Calabria, Donegal, and Kyiv. New arrivals are a year maybe from Juarez … Continue reading

March 19, 2026 · 11 Comments

Stephen Prager: ‘This Should Be Illegal’ | Senate GOP Uses AI Deepfake to Attack James Talarico

“Political deepfakes are a profound threat to our democracy, because there is no realistic way for voters to understand they are seeing fake representations,” said the co-president of Public Citizen.

March 18, 2026 · Leave a comment

Molly Fisk: Lapsed Unitarian in Mormon Country

Some bird
shat a mulberry seed whose skyward
reach is nine feet now at least
and equally wide, for perfect shade.

March 18, 2026 · 22 Comments

Olivia Rosane: Trump’s FCC Chair Threatens to Pull Broadcast Licenses Over Negative Iran War Coverage

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.): “We aren’t on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. Act like it.”

March 17, 2026 · 8 Comments

Robert Cording: Ghost Forest

Tonight, I’m not here
to pretend this place that has been lost,
can be saved, but simply to stand here,
at the edge of what once was
and remember the sound of wind in the pines

March 17, 2026 · 21 Comments

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