Vox Populi

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

Video: Parkinson’s Together

For a long time, I had been wanting to create a series of portraits of my husband, who is living with Parkinson’s disease. Portraits where I honor Hal as a person – his strength and his vulnerability. And portraits where I express how it feels for me to be both a witness and a care partner in this.

February 8, 2025 · 9 Comments

Elizabeth Jacobson: Love, I Am

what am I
to myself:
two feet on
some land
when upright

January 15, 2025 · 11 Comments

Video: Do You Want To Go Down This Way, Or Go Back The Way We Came?

A new film elegy by Bryan Konefsky that uses the lens of loss and grief to explore intersections between memory and artifact.

January 5, 2025 · 5 Comments

Michael Simms: Jubilate

Now I shall praise our dog Josie
the bodhisattva of our household
the perfect embodiment
of devotion, always present
in spontaneous awe

December 14, 2024 · 40 Comments

William Shakespeare: Sonnets 73 & 74

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

December 6, 2024 · 18 Comments

Andrew Reginald Hairston: Sweet Potato Pie

Having gone public with your bisexuality the month prior — and blocking your parents and sister at the same time — the memories would have to suffice

November 27, 2024 · 6 Comments

Video: Naomi Shihab Nye reads her poem Gate A-4

I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”

November 24, 2024 · 18 Comments

Barbara Crooker: Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Nearly fifty years ago,
in the wreckage of my first marriage, I lit
a tall white taper, prayed that my husband
would return to himself, keep our family intact,
a prayer that disappeared in the dark vaults

November 20, 2024 · 16 Comments

Betsy Sholl: Liminal

In Dante, some stanzas so blaze with light,
reading them, you feel your pupils constrict.
It’s like walking along the shore, ocean
flashing on your left, sun straight ahead
flooding your eyes

November 16, 2024 · 24 Comments

Laure-Anne Bosselaar: “Breakfast Morning” by Jacques Prévert

He made smoke
Circles in the air
He put the ashes
Into the ashtray
Without speaking to me
Without looking at me

November 12, 2024 · 18 Comments

James Crews: Finding my Mother

The day you passed away, I stumbled
along icy sidewalks, searching for any
sign of you

May 12, 2024 · 6 Comments

Naomi Shihab Nye: Bees Were Better

I studied bees, who were able
to convey messages through dancing
and could find their ways
home to their hives

April 20, 2024 · 5 Comments

Claudia Boyd-Barrett, Hannah Hough: A Day in the Life of Parents Caring for a Child With Complex Medical Needs

As her parents see it, caring for Claire is part of the job of being parents and something they do gladly…

April 9, 2024 · 2 Comments

Joshua Michael Stewart: The Book of Love

The love my partner and I share is a book we’ve read many times.

February 14, 2024 · 6 Comments

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