Vox Populi

A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.

White Whale Bookstore event: Saturday April 6, 7pmET

We are so excited to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Vox Populi, a curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. The site was started by Pittsburgh poet Michael Simms as a way to connect with his peers in letters, and what better way to ring in ten years than with other Pittsburgh poets, on a date that also coincides with Michael’s 70th birthday! 

April 3, 2024 · 12 Comments

Judith Sanders: The Sabine Woman

But history leaps from the bushes, grabs your throat.
Your sisters’ screams explode in your chest.
Thatch is burning, sacks slit, lentils spilled.

July 31, 2023 · 8 Comments

Judith Sanders: Feeding the Horses at Crystal Spring Farm

Out past the empty barn,
twin Percherons, tall as steeples,
canter across their meadow
to greet my small son and me.

October 13, 2021 · 2 Comments

Judith Sanders: Cherry Tree Elegy

A freak tornado had snapped its aged limbs,
one angled like a lap where our son had snuggled,
sheltered by green in summer, copper in fall. 

September 22, 2021 · 1 Comment

Judith Sanders: The Rubber Woman

I have a thousand uses:
crash dummy, sex toy, punching bag, life raft.

March 6, 2021 · 3 Comments

Judith Sanders: First Lesson

…assess this particular pebble’s
cool weight in your palm,
the diameter of its smoothness,
the course it traveled over the seabed

December 28, 2020 · 3 Comments

Judith Sanders: A Mourner’s Kaddish

We must have forgotten thee,
o Jerusalem,
because our tongues cleave
to the roofs of our mouths
and our right hands
have lost their cunning.

October 27, 2020 · Leave a comment

Judith Sanders: Autumn Walk at Beechwood Farms

You said, Name the world.
So I said, I call this a spangle tree.
How about, you said, a rose-hued spangle tree.
That’s beautiful, I said.
Let’s name the world together.

October 7, 2020 · 7 Comments

Judith Sanders: Late to Meet You at the Indian Restaurant

So I drove, and listened to the news, about
the demise of democracy and collapse of civilization
head-beams probing the dark like outstretched hands.

February 12, 2020 · 5 Comments

Judith Sanders: The Farewell

“Picture a staircase,”
the hypnotist said.
“At the top, a door
will open
onto a landscape.”

January 31, 2020 · Leave a comment

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