Vox Populi

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

Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi: Those With Chronic Illness in Gaza Say They’re Denied a Bare Minimum to Survive

This is an engineered famine — deliberate starvation under Israeli siege: Markets are empty. Aid trucks are blocked. Weeds are being boiled for soup.

September 2, 2025 · 5 Comments

Nasser Rabah: The War That Just Won’t End

In wartime the heart expands, becomes a boat for little kids.
An hour of peace and quiet is pure heaven for writing.

March 16, 2025 · 13 Comments

Angele Ellis: The life and legacy of Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer (1979-2023)

Refaat Alareer stands in a field in Gaza, holding a container of freshly picked strawberries. What evokes the earth’s sweetness more fully than a ripe berry? The expression on his face—scholarly, bespectacled—is gentle and tender.

March 4, 2025 · 7 Comments

Adam Patric Miller: How (Not) to Wear a Keffiyeh to School

Fold the keffiyeh in a triangle, lift it to your face, lift your arms about your head holding the ends of the longest edge, then wrap it so the triangle covers your face, tie the long ends together behind your head, letting the patterns drape over your shoulders.

December 9, 2024 · 13 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

Abby Zimet: Unspeakable | We Are Swimming In A Pool of Blood

Israel’s blithe defiance of both world censure and ICJ rulings goes on apace.

August 1, 2024 · 12 Comments

Naomi Shihab Nye: Different Ways to Pray

There were the men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!

July 21, 2024 · 11 Comments

Lisa Suhair Majaj: For the Dead Among Us

We will keep you alive
in our longing, in our breath.

July 17, 2024 · 11 Comments

Mandy Fessenden-Brauer: Two Poems About the Orchards of Gaza

Although it’s one of the most densely populated areas in the world, Gaza’s always had a distinct rural quality. Everyone grew something, some in agricultural areas away from their homes. Even in the very crowded refugee camps there were small atriums with a tree and potted plants.

July 8, 2024 · 9 Comments

George Yancy: Protesters Show Courage for Gaza as Leaders Show Cowardice

Amid a growing movement, there’s hope that a liberated Palestine will exist within our lifetime, says Alexandra Aladham.

June 12, 2024 · 2 Comments

Abby Zimet: To See Our Humanity

Israeli forces just dropped U.S.-made bombs on displaced Gazans, mostly women and children, sleeping in a UN school in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 40 and injuring hundreds in yet another massacre of innocents that “contradicts all human values.”

June 11, 2024 · 4 Comments

Brett Wilkins: New ICC Complaint Over Journalists Killed by Israel in Gaza

Reporters Without Borders says it has “reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians.”

May 28, 2024 · 3 Comments

George Yancy and Judith Butler: Universities Have Failed Their Democratic Mission by Repressing Gaza Protests

Universities are using draconian measures against student protesters who refuse to deem Palestinian suffering “unreal.”

May 12, 2024 · 7 Comments

Brett Wilkins: Israel Kills Daughter, Infant Grandson of Slain Palestinian Poet Refaat Alareer

The daughter, infant grandson, and son-in-law of Refaat Alareer—the renowned Palestinian poet assassinated last year in an Israeli airstrike—were killed Friday in another Israel Defense Forces bombing, this one reportedly targeting a building hosting an international relief charity in Gaza City.

April 30, 2024 · 1 Comment

Archives