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…

Forest in Gauteng. Painting Mike Hall There is only around half an acre of land per person in the UK. But this is more than enough to live on, be happy, and allow life to flourish by Anandi Sharan Political economy in developed countries has as its aim some version or the other of…

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…