Vox Populi

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

C.P. Kavafy: Che Fece… Il Gran Rifiuto

For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No.

December 8, 2024 · 14 Comments

Robert F. Barsky: Noam Chomsky at 96

The linguist, educator, philosopher and public thinker has had a massive intellectual and moral influence.

December 7, 2024 · 8 Comments

Joan E. Bauer: 165 Maybery Road

Salka raises money, gathers affidavits
to bring Jews from Europe to safety, finds jobs
for the newcomers, drives them to Farmer’s Market
on Fairfax, a reminder of the Old World.

December 7, 2024 · 9 Comments

Video: How to Slow Brain Aging by Two Years

The consumption of blueberries and strawberries is associated with delayed cognitive aging by as much as 2.5 years—thought to be because of brain-localizing anthocyanin phytonutrients, as shown on functional MRI scans.

December 6, 2024 · 4 Comments

William Shakespeare: Sonnets 73 & 74

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

December 6, 2024 · 18 Comments

Eloise Goldberg: Top 12 US Billionaires Now Control $2 Trillion in Wealth

We see the effects of this growing concentration of wealth and economic inequality everywhere—plutocratic influence on our politics, wealth transfers from the bottom to the top, and the acceleration of climate breakdown.

December 5, 2024 · 2 Comments

Jason Baldinger: a people’s history of williamson west virginia

instead we holed up
in a burned-out department store
rechristened junk shop
sifting boxes of ten cent
black and white photos

December 5, 2024 · 5 Comments

George Yancy: Cornel West | We Must Keep Our Souls Intact as We Organize Under Trump Again

“Trump is American gangsterism crystallized, honest about itself, unashamed and bold,” says West.

December 4, 2024 · 12 Comments

Alexis Rhone Fancher: Watch your back my dead mother warns

I was in my late teens, off to college up north. I’m hoping you’re rid of M for good, my mother said. But he wanted to move north with me, and begged me to move in with him, that we would go to school together. Me, desperate to be a solo act. The look on his face when I turned him down, unforgettable.

December 4, 2024 · 13 Comments

Rebecca Gordon: Staring Down Misogyny

What the election means for women (and the rest of us)

December 3, 2024 · 9 Comments

David Adès: I

I the stubbornness that brooks no argument,
I the prayer, I the lover, I the blessing and the curse,
I the question, I the answer,

December 3, 2024 · 10 Comments

Jon Queally: Trump Picks ‘Deeply Strange’ Kash Patel—Who Vowed to ‘Come After People in the Media’—for FBI Director

Patel founded a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to individuals prosecuted for involvement in the January 6, 2021 insurrection

December 2, 2024 · 2 Comments

Rose Mary Boehm: Words for the Unspeakable

Ghosts are already rising, singing their silent song
of loss; accusing, whispering, searching, blinded,
for their olive tree.

December 2, 2024 · 6 Comments

Liza M. Hinchey: How small acts of kindness and connection really can change the world, according to research

Research shows that individual acts of kindness and connection can have a real impact on global change when these acts are collective.

December 1, 2024 · 4 Comments

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