Vox Populi

A Public Sphere for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. Over 15,000 daily subscribers. Over 7,000 archived posts.

Jennifer Brookland: Holding On When Leaving Feels Like Letting Go

I spent four years in the military and remember it in fuzzy flashes. The little I do recall leaves me with a vague sense of awkward incompetence, confusion, and shame.

October 21, 2022 · 6 Comments

Frida Berrigan: This Is My Song

What I Can Still Love about My Embattled Country (and World)

July 19, 2022 · Leave a comment

Michael Simms: Elderberry Magic

In the Native American tradition, the elder is sacred. The soft whistling song I often hear in the branches has been heard by others as well. Elder’s long association with wind instruments suggests that the magical sound comes not from the wind but rather from the tree itself, as well as any instruments carved from elder branches.

July 16, 2022 · 13 Comments

Christine Rhein: Sunflowers

The whole world
has pictures, explosions
we hold in our palms

June 6, 2022 · 4 Comments

Christine Rhein: Our Corner Acre, April Afternoon

Side by side, we dig in the withered flowerbed,
the sudden warmth, and once again you say, See
how much the light has shifted. I nod my head
at another changing season, our aching knees.

April 17, 2022 · 2 Comments

Joan E. Bauer: The Sisterhood of Buddleias

Sarah plants a butterfly bush
for the purple, nectar-rich splendor in a pot.
Hannah wants some pink extravagance
to beckon hummingbirds.

September 2, 2020 · 1 Comment

Oliver Sacks: Why We Need Gardens

In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.

May 10, 2020 · 5 Comments

Sharon Fagan McDermott: Sharon In Wonderland | Dandelion

The view from here? A prophecy
of how light, wind, and earth conspire
to play their role in dandelions’ flourishing—
then aids them in their vanishing.

April 27, 2020 · 1 Comment

Sharon Fagan McDermott: This Against the Night

Sweet hyssop and the sweltering hives
from which sail bees, their resolute flight
into July, into my garden.

August 21, 2019 · Leave a comment

Sandra McPherson: Garden Monk

— Lucien Stryk, Davis, California, 1988

August 19, 2019 · 2 Comments

Philip Terman: Such Abundance

When he called for help,
they put him on hold
longer than he could stand
and he broke
the phone in half.

August 8, 2019 · 1 Comment

Hayden Saunier: After Watching the Attorney General Testify, May 1, 2019

I’m back outside, hands deep in dirt and dirt’s
the only thing that’s telling truth today.

June 10, 2019 · Leave a comment

Deonna Anderson: These Indigenous Women Are Reclaiming Stolen Land in the Bay Area

Through a voluntary land tax and donations from land owners, this organization is working to create an alternative land base for Indigenous people in California’s East Bay.

June 6, 2019 · Leave a comment

Sharon Fagan McDermott: Meditation on a Sanctuary

And still there is shelter in shade
and pummeling rain, in the produce aisle
with its mounds of lemons, nectarines.

June 5, 2019 · Leave a comment

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