Ever since I stumbled on Sonnet Mondal’s poems, I have been captivated by their stunning simplicity and words evoking a magical experience. That he achieves this consistently is breath-taking. In this occasional series, our aim is to connect you with some of these exceptional beauties I come across. These are rare, as they don’t…

Sara. Illustration Pete Field An Extract from Paul Halas’s forthcoming book, Sara’s Lives To be published by AN Editions in March 2027 The Riversmeet Coffeehouse was just opening when we approached it, but they were happy to serve us very fine St Helena Peaberry coffees and a couple of excellent but horribly expensive croissants.…

Welsh Tea Cakes. Zingy Yellow. Wikimedia Commons Reflections on English and Welsh Nationalism by Pete Field Before I start asking questions I must state my position. I am English, from the North-East of England and I support a United Ireland, an Independent Scotland, a free Wales and independence for the North of England. Devolution…

The White Nile. Photograph Flavia Corpas At Ars Notoria we are pleased to be able to introduce Jennifer Johnson to our readers. She was born in 1956 in Sudan, by the side of the Nile, between Khartoum and what is now the border of South Sudan – on the edge of the dividing line…

A B-29 over Osaka on 1 June 1945. US Air Force Public Domain “Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only ONE day, of modern warfare.” — Peter Ustinov, actor, writer, and director (16 Apr…

Writing becomes grooming: repetitive, humble, necessary. Richard Steinhardt. Photograph by Lisa Steinhardt                                                             (p. 77, Versed) Nagra, Daljit. Yiewsley. Faber & Faber, June 2026. Hardback: £14.99; ebook. Faber Poetry Subscription title for June 2026 (subscribe by 31 May to receive). “A return to the poet’s boyhood and the town that made him.” by Yogesh Patel…

Sudeep Sen is the International and Poetry Editor at Ars Notoria and a leading international poet whose prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Penguin), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury), Anthropocene (Pippa Rann, Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize), and Red. Edited landmark anthologies include: The HarperCollins Book of…

Crystal Orb. Photograph Phil Hall by Yogesh Patel There is a particular genuine sincerity in a prize decided not by a closed jury but by the interactive poets of a literary journal. This is the unique and honest quality for which my Word Masala Foundation sponsors the Orbis Poetry Annual Prize. It is fully…

Kennedys From Patriarch to Son by Norman B. Schwartz Part I: Ambassador Kennedy. Like Father, Like Son Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr (1888–1969) was a man of enormous political ambition, first for himself and then for his sons – the first killed in the Second World War, two others assassinated, John F. Kennedy (born 1917)…

Parsley. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko Pexels.com Herbs as care, spellwork, scandal and the people’s green masala by Arun Kapil The first herb that properly got me was not basil, not rosemary, not some noble Mediterranean shrub clinging to a hot stone wall. It was cress. Tiny brown specks on damp tissue. Nothing much to…

Etudiante lisant L’unité culturelle de l’Afrique noire, en 2021. JN Picture ‘European civilisation has been a long process of epistemicide—the destruction of knowledge, languages, cultures, and the production and distribution of wealth.’ Afrocentrism and Identity Construction “Mɔgɔ kelen tɛ yɛlɛma kɔni kelen ka kɛ bɛɛ ye.”A single person cannot become everything all alone.—Bambara proverb, Mali.…