Vox Populi

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

Clarissa Scott Delany: Joy

Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail…

June 10, 2022 · 2 Comments

Myisha Cherry: From the erotic to the political – the legacy of Audre Lorde

The feminist poet and scholar Audre Lorde left a legacy that my generation, women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQ community have widely and wisely embraced. And we still … Continue reading

May 27, 2022 · Leave a comment

Video: My God, It’s Full of Stars | Tracy K. Smith

This short film adapts a poem by the former US Poet Laureate Tracy K Smith, whose father worked on the Hubble as one of NASA’s first Black engineers, with meticulously crafted visuals from the Brazilian animation director Daniel Brunson to create a wondrous ode to our desire to know the Universe.

March 27, 2022 · 2 Comments

Jericho Brown: Nativity

Come trouble’s birthday,
I think of every gift people get
They don’t use. Oh, and I
Pray.

December 25, 2021 · 2 Comments

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: In the Other World

Our beloved lay down and then eloped
to that other world.

August 22, 2021 · 3 Comments

Countee Cullen: Heritage

Africa? A book one thumbs
Listlessly, till slumber comes.
Unremembered are her bats
Circling through the night, her cats
Crouching in the river reeds

February 26, 2021 · 6 Comments

Video: Joe Biden and Elizabeth Alexander discuss “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden

President-elect Joe Biden, poet Elizabeth Alexander, psychologist Angela Duckworth, and a chorus of working fathers and sons join Poetry in America host Elisa New to reflect on Robert Hayden’s sonnet “Those Winter Sundays.”

February 7, 2021 · 4 Comments

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Bury Me in a Free Land

All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

August 14, 2020 · 6 Comments

Video: Revolution

Revolution is comprised of 7 vignettes where individuals talk, discuss how being Black has impacted them and what the word revolution means to them.

July 4, 2020 · 1 Comment

Amiri Baraka: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

April 17, 2020 · Leave a comment

Amiri Baraka: The Liar

What I thought was love
in me, I find a thousand instances
of fear.

February 28, 2020 · 2 Comments

Audio: WeWeWeWe The Remarkable (for Gwendolyn Brooks)

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

February 1, 2020 · Leave a comment

Thomas Sayers Ellis: All Their Stanzas Look Alike

All their Selected Collecteds
All their Oxford Nortons
All their Academy Societies
All their Oprah Vendlers
All their stanzas look alike

October 29, 2019 · Leave a comment

Richard Wright: Haiku

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.

September 6, 2019 · 1 Comment

Enter your email address to follow Vox Populi and receive new posts by email.

Join 15,741 other subscribers

Blog Stats

  • 4,648,185 hits

Archives