Vox Populi

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

Gary Fincke: Headcheese, Liverwurst, a List of Loaves

Our refrigerator
Opened to liverwurst,
Headcheese, a list of loaves:
Luncheon and Luxury

January 24, 2023 · 7 Comments

Video: Safe

On a winter night in Atlantic City, the manager of a defunct casino must reckon with his parental failures when his unruly son needs help out of an illicit bind.

January 1, 2023 · 2 Comments

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum: Heaven-Fire

The boy is not my blood
Though “Son” is the only name I have for “He-
Who-Will-Dance-To-Just-About-Anything,”

December 15, 2022 · 7 Comments

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum: The Toddler

Almost anything will break
The toddler’s heart: His mommy’s keys
Singing from the bowl of loose ends
And change on her way out the door
For work.

December 1, 2022 · 2 Comments

Tony Gloeggler: Working Class Heroes

My father opened the trunk, 
tossed me my glove with a worn 
hardball tucked in its pocket, eased 
into a catcher’s crouch as I paced 
60 feet away.

November 29, 2022 · 8 Comments

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum: A Good Man

To this day, my sister and I wonder if Dad
Got it right. “Fear,” he explained years later,
“Is sometimes the only tool.”

October 13, 2022 · 9 Comments

Edward Harkness: My Father Meets Margaret Bourke-White 

He finds a Hershey bar
in his breast pocket, offers her a piece.
She flicks her cigarette into the dark,
takes the chocolate and says, Thanks, kiddo.

September 20, 2022 · 12 Comments

Carol Frost: Now Soon

Father and mother time to rise up put away the dark
give back to him more than he can ever use give what is
not his to have what he never knew he knows and all he feels

September 5, 2022 · 8 Comments

Jim Daniels: My Security Question

The closet in her room
remains as she left it
clothes losing their dark
interest. Ghosts in the dust.

June 2, 2022 · 3 Comments

Video: Bruiser

After his father gets into a fight at a bowling alley, Darious begins to investigate the limitations of his own manhood.

May 21, 2022 · Leave a comment

Tony Gloeggler: Cheez-Its

He makes a wounded bird sound
if we have to sit at the bar, wait
for a table, or the waitress brings
his apple juice a bit too slowly

April 28, 2022 · 6 Comments

Megan Merchant / Luke Johnson: Origin Story (An Epistolary Dialogue)

From our window, grosbeaks
and buntings tangle into flight. The hours count
earlier now, because of the way they are lit.

April 15, 2022 · Leave a comment

Tony Gloeggler: Autistic Joy

He freezes, tries not to look at me and places
his hand over his mouth as this boundless
sound spills out, his eyes bubbly blue champagne,
while his body shakes and shivers in happiness.

April 7, 2022 · 8 Comments

Paul Christensen: While Boston Sleeps

The day proceeded to turn over heavily, with the sun appearing to be bolted to a chink of sky between morose gray clouds. Poor Boston, poor humble Providence, all those rivets of history to our genesis as a nation graying in the ancient countryside.

February 6, 2022 · 3 Comments

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