Vox Populi

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

Wallace Stevens: Sunday Morning

Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights

August 24, 2025 · 17 Comments

Barbara Hamby: Mockingbird on the Buddha

The mockingbird on the Buddha says, Where’s my seed,
you Jezebel, where’s the sunshine in my blue sky,
where’s the Hittite princess, Pharaoh’s temple, where’s the rain
for the misery I love so much?

July 28, 2025 · 13 Comments

James Crews: Meditation Class

I wiped the fog from the glass and saw
a statue of the Buddha on a shelf, laughing
at himself, laughing at me standing there
in a puddle, under a pine tree that kept
dripping on my head

May 3, 2025 · 16 Comments

James Crews: The Poetry of Connection and Joy | A Conversation with Michael Simms

My husband is a farmer, so we often wake up before first light, and I go off on my own with a big cup of coffee to scribble in my notebook for a few hours.

April 19, 2024 · 10 Comments

Laurence Musgrove: In the Cockpit

I like to imagine that every morning
Before I get up, the pilot of my plane
Runs through the standard checklist,
Making sure the gauges and switches 
Are set and secure for an easy takeoff

March 27, 2024 · 1 Comment

Video: Dan Harris | The Benefits Of Not Being A Jerk To Yourself

After more than two decades as an anchor for ABC News, an on-air panic attack sent Dan Harris’s life in a new direction: he became a dedicated meditator and, to some, even a guru. But then an anonymous survey of his family, friends and colleagues turned up some brutal feedback — he was still kind of a jerk.

December 28, 2022 · 2 Comments

Adrienne Maree Brown: Breaking is part of healing

I was in a conversation recently with a friend who had just returned from a meditation retreat. She said one of the ideas shared with her group was that “the teacup is already broken,” a meditation on how the death or ending or brokenness we fear is inevitable.

September 6, 2022 · 7 Comments

Adrienne Maree Brown: Murmurations | Love Looks Like Accountability

Racialized capitalism trains us to expect that some people fall through the cracks into unjust suffering; our cultural individualism tells us this is acceptable, as long as we aren’t the ones at the bottom. 

August 18, 2022 · 2 Comments

Steve Mentz: I swim to think and to stay afloat in an ever-wetter world

Pools open portals. All bodies of water issue invitations, but there’s a special doorway provided by a familiar concrete rectangle, usually 25 or 50 metres long, filled with warm water. In that unnatural … Continue reading

June 22, 2022 · Leave a comment

Doug Anderson: Not a Buddhist Buddhist

I’ve been doing a Buddhist practice now for some years. I’m not a Buddhist. I’m not “enlightened” nor do I see myself as superior to anyone else. I would never … Continue reading

March 4, 2022 · 3 Comments

Video: Path of Freedom

In the harsh environment of a Rhode Island men’s prison, a group of fifty inmates are transforming their lives through the practice of meditation.

March 10, 2019 · 1 Comment

Mike James: Twenty Years In, Still Trying To Meditate

nothing happens then it happens again a fly buzzes on one side of the window wind blows against the other side a car passes then a motorcyle the fly stops … Continue reading

February 16, 2016 · Leave a comment

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