Vox Populi

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

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: News

our people who do the hard work
of America,
dying as caregivers

February 16, 2022 · 1 Comment

Baron Wormser: “Sweet, ironic” America and Cesare Pavese 

Among the many heartbreaking sentences in the diaries of the great Italian poet and writer Cesare Pavese, these few, at the very end when he was grappling with his love … Continue reading

February 14, 2022 · 7 Comments

Edison Jennings: Flocks of Crowned Spirits

the rich escape to seaside estates                           
sheltering in place a few sanitized days                      
behind elaborate wrought iron gates

January 4, 2022 · 4 Comments

Video: Happiness Family Farm

Rosata, her husband, Prosper, and son, Japhety, work year-round on their small farm to harvest fresh fruits and vegetables for the Portland community.

October 7, 2021 · Leave a comment

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: In the Other World

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

August 22, 2021 · 3 Comments

Kaveh Bassiri: Afterword

In the Quran, God taught Adam the names of all things. Even the angels didn’t know the names. Do we carry the weight of these words with us? Do they hold us responsible?

July 14, 2021 · 1 Comment

Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: When I Shut the Door

The news arrived by e-mail — a scribble of a long, single sentence, broken up, like little chunks of wood, the way a year is broken up into months and weeks, days, hours.

June 15, 2021 · 2 Comments

Kaveh Bassiri: Writing Persian

During the hostage crisis, when I was Albanian,
my history teacher conceded, “You’ve to be born into English
to be its rightful citizen.” I wanted to be an American poet,
but was a Persian settler.

May 20, 2021 · 6 Comments

Richard Levine: Day Labor

This is New York, drinking coffee in plain
blue paper cups at dawn. In every tongue,
the dream begins with showing up.

April 6, 2021 · 2 Comments

Bunkong Tuon: Fishing for Trey Platoo

Cambodians and Vietnamese, once enemies,
fish side by side on the same American pier.

March 25, 2021 · 1 Comment

Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor: Gezundheit

The way this strange, non-English wish
commuted in a grandmother’s Yiddish
mouth, zay gezunt

November 11, 2020 · 3 Comments

Paola Corso: American Future

Snapshot of my father as a young man
standing at the top of hillside steps

April 20, 2020 · 2 Comments

Lornet Turnbull: What Happens When a Person Is Deported?

A new guide provides resources to help those being returned to their countries of origin.

February 21, 2020 · Leave a comment

Three stories: People fight the system and win

A farmer prevails against Monsanto in court. Refugees find ingenious ways to scale Trump’s wall. And 100 cities around the world provide free public transportation everyday for everyone.

February 19, 2020 · Leave a comment

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