Vox Populi

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Rachel Hadas: Ancient Greece had extreme polarization and civil strife too – how Thucydides can help us understand Jan. 6 and its aftermath

The insights and objectivity of a historian who lived nearly 2,500 years ago can bolster our understanding of the country’s current plight.

January 24, 2023 · 4 Comments

Rachel Hadas: Hypocrisy is beneath them – political figures in the Trump era don’t bother concealing their misdeeds

There seems to be no sense of shame or its cousin, guilt, in our time.

November 1, 2022 · 3 Comments

Umit Singh Dhuga: Three poems

We were huddled by the Campbell House bar
on the penultimate Monday of July
downing pint after pint of tepid water.
My first reading sober, your last one alive.

October 20, 2022 · Leave a comment

Rachel Hadas: That Patch of Warmth

August. Midday. Look up: flawless sky
until a cloud sprouts; sidles; suddenly
blots out the sun. Wind troubles the trees

August 10, 2022 · 2 Comments

Rachel Hadas: Little Free Library, Turner’s Falls

Crones do not whine: agreed.
But pain’s a constant, and the need
to let it out, give it a name
shouldn’t be a source of shame.

July 3, 2022 · 4 Comments

Rachel Hadas: The Seeds

My former student sent me six or seven
little homemade packets—folded paper
labelled and taped. Inside each packet
she’d tucked a few heritage seeds:
squash, lettuce, kale, peas, more I am forgetting.

June 12, 2022 · 3 Comments

Rachel Hadas: Sourdough Starter

One batch of sourdough starter, it is said,
can trace its lineage generations back.
Each fresh loaf carries on the tangy smack…

May 28, 2022 · Leave a comment

Rachel Hadas: Ides of March MMXX

But who
could hear me through my mask?
Don’t ask.
Love
wears a glove.

April 11, 2022 · 2 Comments

Rachel Hadas: ‘Laugh right in its face’ – a poet reflects on her craft’s defiant role in the middle of a war

Poets write poetry to help them come to terms with the terror of their times. The process of writing those poems, and the process of reading them, both offer respite.

April 3, 2022 · 3 Comments

Rachel Hadas: February 29, 2020

That extra day, that ordinary day,
I got where I was going on the train
and taught the lyric leap, as per the plan;
then, tired, happy, bathed in poetry,
caught a train and travelled back again

March 20, 2022 · 2 Comments

Rachel Hadas: Smoke

Smoke from a massive fire was blowing across the river
into the city: lobbies of apartment buildings,
inner rooms of doctors’ offices.

January 23, 2022 · 1 Comment

Rachel Hadas: Ghost guest

I sometimes think I recognize the face
of my own death. Knowing it is nearer
makes me feel it ought to be familiar,
a neutral guest I’ve seen somewhere before.

December 29, 2021 · 4 Comments

Rachel Hadas: Fire Pit

Gathered, we watched flames
flickering and drawing us together.
It was hard to pull our eyes away.

October 16, 2021 · 1 Comment

Rachel Hadas: Humble Herb is Rival to Prozac

The little notebook, its pages an eye-ease greenish tint, with my staggering penciled captions labeling every blessed thing, each flower picked and pressed and taped down to the page, contains more than specimens of wildflowers from a Vermont meadow. It encloses the first summer I remember.

September 18, 2021 · 5 Comments

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