Photograph El Capra by Peter Cowlam The Transmutation Si came down from the fields, where he’d been working, for the day was nearly departed. The sun had sunk towards the mountains, while the mingling hues of evening had faded in a wash of summer twilight. It was a pleasant, tranquil hour. As was his…

Photograph Salih Pexels.com A Water Jog of Larks You wore zopilotes in your hairand you didn’t knowyou went down to the river to submergethe light blue as you movedthe river washed you of timethe river carried your time awayWhen are you from?How much of you has gone?in the depths of dream you gather flowersA…

Armendia Qyqja. Courtesy of the author A few years ago, I published an anthology of contemporary Albanian poetry called The New Condemned with my company World Inkers Printing and Publishing. Its purpose was to document the effects of the repressive communist regime on Albanian culture and to highlight its cultural uniqueness in literature. This…

The USA targeted and killed 175 girls in its opening salvo against Iran. The US people are now deeply demoralised at home and the US government and corporations are desperately hated abroad for their death dealing and grotesque warmongering. Mehr News Agency My second letter to Trump was written in the warning tone of…

My visitors were mule deer, not pronghorn antelope. Photo by Samuel Sweet Pexels.com A reply to the article: Carol Rumens & the Birth of the Online Literary Commons Dear virtual Phil, What a surprise. Thank you for including such a stimulating delving down to the seeds of the keiretsu-cooperative in your elegant tribute to…

The Poet and founder of the International Colloquium of Poetry and Philosophy, Ulises Paniagua Olivares Our wondrous journey to the 6th International Colloquium of Poetry and Philosophy The International Colloquium of Poetry and Philosophy comes round again. This year, 2026, it happens in two countries: Colombia (face-to-face) and Mexico (online). The celebrations will take…

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.…

by J.W. Wood They came up with the technology at the end of the last century: right after they’d perfected WiFi and 3D optics. Like so many inventions, Frusick was just waiting for some bright spark to pluck it out of the ether – and that’s exactly what some bright spark did. Via cute…

The Légion d’ honneur was awarded to Uncle. Photograph Alexei Nikolay Evichromanov During my very infrequent visits to Paris, passing Drancy Station on the RER suburban line between Orly Airport and Paris is always a poignant experience. My uncle spent some time there during World War Two. In 1966, as a seventeen year old,…

by Bryan Greetham I wanted to examine the claim that fascism was a last-ditch response to a failing capitalism – an attempt to rescue it. One powerful incentive to embrace a radical right party, like the National Socialists, was self-interest. The radical right appealed more to all those social groups (teachers, civil servants, army…

Does Phobos look as if it is a pile of rubble, or does it look like a battered 500 million year old metallic hulk? Photograph NASA Will 3I/ATLAS, bide its time in the Oort cloud before swinging in again for the kill? by Phil Hall John E. Brandenburg is a plasma physicist with a…

Carol Rumens RIP (10 December 1944 – 25 April 2026, aged 81) was born in Forest Hill, South London, and died from a brain tumour. She studied Philosophy at the University of London and earned a Postgraduate Diploma in Writing for the Stage from City College Manchester. She served as poetry editor for Quarto and the Literary Review,…

Spam has a reputation so durable it can survive a frying pan, a joke, a war and a supermarket aisle without so much as loosening its tie. Photograph Kent Ng Pexels Sweet and savoury hallucinations people mock, fear, hide, inherit, sneer at and eat anyway by Arun Kapil Some foods never enter the kitchen…

My Hat. Photograph Phil Hall by Phil Hall We’re talking about religion and the imagination. Some of the wildest thoughts human beings have ever had have been religious thoughts. Some of the most extravagant love stories, like the Song of Solomon—are religious. Some of the most apocalyptic science fiction ever written came from religious…

Oil wealth in the Gulf represents hope for the developing world. Photograph Tom Fisk. Destroying and killing nationalist, sovereign opposition to imperialism is the métier of capitalism by Phil Hall The destruction of alternative sources of energy, and of infrastructure in Central Asia, the Gulf and the Middle East represents the logical conclusion of…

Photograph Dmitryshein and Bristol Greens, Wikimedia Commons Polanski and Mamdani are no counterbalance to a monstrous system of global wealth extraction by Richard Steinhardt Zohran Mamdani and Zack Polanski are trying to get into your knickers. In the 1980s, something called “The New Man” emerged as a cultural phenomenon. Born partly in response to…

“The word Chechnya alone was enough to provoke despair.” By Richard Steinhardt Parallels are often drawn between Napoleon’s invasion of Tsarist Russia and Hitler’s invasion of the USSR when the point is made that the results of invading Russia through the Ukraine, directly or through proxies, are disastrous. However, the correct analogy to be…

Photograph Francesco Ungaro by Phil Hall The Enochian tradition is based on the 16th-century works of Dr. John Dee (1527–1608) and his Irish scryer, Edward Kelley. It is named after the biblical patriarch Enoch, who “walked with God.” Dee and Kelley claimed to have been given a language and an outlook by angels. Dr.…

The legalisation of euthanasia under capitalism is not an act of compassion. It is a logical extension of a system that values profit over human life, death instead of care. Image X A Humane Socialist View I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why, I cannot tell; But this I know, and…

Close up of Hari, Solaris. Screen capture Mosfilm, Fair Use It leaves you almost speechless. Certainly readers have been bombarded. Every article, interview, story, every exhibition of paintings is worthy of being examined with close attention. In particular, we had wonderful contributions from the Art Editor, Paul Halas; the Food Editor, Arun Kapil; the…

Publicity photo of Fairuz, circa 1971. Publicity photo, photographer unknown by Phil Hall Israel has long suffered from a severe case of Lebanon envy, a condition that explains its relentless pattern of invasion and attempts at occupation. The Israelis, predominantly Ashkenazi Jews with little original genetic connection to the Levant, have spent decades appropriating…

Demis Hassabis of the United Kingdom, 2024 Nobel Prize Laureate. Photograph John Sears, Wikimedia Commons The CaMeL Framework is Defense Research with Offensive Implications by Richard Steinhardt The bombing of an Iranian primary school, which resulted in the deaths of 175 innocent civilians—mainly young girls, along with some of their parents and teachers—has focused…