Joan E. Bauer: The Sisterhood of Buddleias
Sarah plants a butterfly bush
for the purple, nectar-rich splendor in a pot.
Hannah wants some pink extravagance
to beckon hummingbirds.
Joan E. Bauer: Get Your Kicks
This August my niece Holly will drive
the Mother Road. She’s a writer & I say:
Don’t miss anything: not cornfields, chili fries,
maple syrup farms, not the Big Texan
Steak House in dusty Amarillo…
Joan E. Bauer: W. Eugene Smith in Minamata, Japan 1971
Smith frames: Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath
The mother cradles Tomoko, her misshapen daughter.
Light through a dark window.
A post-modern pietà.
Vox Populi: An Interview With Our Editor
On Friday, we caught up with poet, blogger, editor and activist Michael Simms at his kitchen table where he was preparing his Saturday morning post for Vox Populi.
Joan E. Bauer: Brilliant Modernist, Armored Life
Afraid of heights, she stood on ledges.
To onlookers, she’d say:
Buddy, I’m not a nice girl. I’m a photographer.
I go anywhere.
Michael Simms: Here are the most popular Vox Populi posts of 2019
In 2019 Vox Populi published 751 posts, usually two per day, resulting in over 8 million views. Here is a list of our most popular posts in 2019 listed by category: poetry, personal essays, political articles, and art/music/cinema.
Joan E. Bauer: China Journal, 1997
In steam-baked Wuhan, land of fish and lakes, near the cross-banks
of Yangtze and Han, we walk into Mao’s sanctum, the grand hall
of hand-cut rock.
Joan E. Bauer: For Auden — Circling Toward Home
Art, you claimed: born of humiliation.
You knew that early & you had the gift
of double focus, of seeing the world
with more than one lens.
Joan E. Bauer: Bird’s Landing, Monongahela
They were flying steady in the winter of ’56, from Nevada, the B-25, six men on board, three pilots and crew bound east. At a stop in Oklahoma, the snow … Continue reading
Joan E. Bauer: The Camera Artist
In 1955, Swiss-born Robert Frank criss-crossed the United States. From 27,000 shots, 83 images: The Americans. Factory workers in Detroit, transvestites in New York City. Billowing American flags, gossamer-thin & torn. … Continue reading
Joan E. Bauer: Duckweed
In Branchville, New Jersey, home of Bear Swamp, I’m with the Frugal Traveler & to prove I’m no stranger to frugality, I find a $57-a-night special with a bathroom painted … Continue reading
Joan E. Bauer: A Thousand Pigeons
Robbie, Paul & I met Carlin at the Hamburger Hamlet in Westwood in 1970. Carlin had a big laugh & shiny hair, but behind the jokes, a serious guy. He … Continue reading
Joan E. Bauer: Remembering V. S. Naipaul at the Dawn of a Dark Century
The November rain rat-tats, beads on the window. I scratch words, anxious birds on a yellow pad. In your cottage in Wiltshire, perhaps you are writing. Your anguished Asiatic … Continue reading
Joan E. Bauer: River Dolphin of the Yangtze
We sailed on a river boat down the Yangtze twenty years ago—before the Three Gorges Dam & the rising water lowered the mountains. That day the peaks shrouded with … Continue reading
