One Thousand Origami Paper Cranes Fly Away: A book review by Candice Louisa Daquin One Thousand Origami Paper Cranes Fly Away (River Paw Press, 2025) a Chapbook by Martin Willitts Jr. The challenge for a manuscript to shine out from many submissions is seemingly impossible. How does one manuscript stand a chance against many other…
By Tulasi Acharya Martin Willitts Jr. is an award-winning poet whose work emerges from a life closely observed and fully lived. The author of over twenty full-length collections and twenty-five chapbooks, he has built a body of work shaped by experience, reflection, and an enduring engagement with history. His most recent chapbook, One Thousand Origami…
Soon It Starts It is my brother, ready to go to war.I realise I may not see him again.He shakes my hand, which he’s never done beforeand climbs into the truck with the other men. I am a child but it’s up to meto defend our mother and our home.I stare at the hilltop. Nothing…
Urban Olympus It was upon the hour the world is caughtthen bitten by the brute which hunts its heavens.Rooftops accommodate the hanging jawof this unsated beast—whatever it may be. Whatever creature ancient tales have saidhas great enough a greed to chew our skies.Who—coarse of manners, gnaws with open mawthat we may watch him swallow daytime’s light. Where…
Death Scene to be Seen A small group of women squat on the pavement,heads dark and dejected, murmuring chorusof smoking friends. Acting as signpostfor visitors unsure of the house numberfunneled into a warm hug, then pointedto the long concrete stairs that lead all the way upto the murky middle of elderly pineswhere I slip into…
When I Was a Child Even while I was in the womb, I had a dream,that, at my appearance, daylight would not cease,that darkness would not be a climate to lingerwherever I was going to place my feet.I dreamed that stars formed a long queue,and at my entrance bow their heads like trees;let me walk…
Tenderloin She slept in full sunwrapped in a winter coaton the sidewalkbeneath the windowof the mattress storeHer dreams shaped by the cleanwhite bedthree feet above her headthe taunt of a red and yellow sale signon the unwelcoming doortransformed in dreamscapeto the letters of her nameon a room of her ownthere through the large picturewindow she…
Winter is a season of endurance, contemplation, and reflection. I hope the contents of the Winter 2026 Edition of Life and Legends invite our readers to pause and engage with the works presented here, penned by writers who have made language a vessel for carrying the enduring spirit of humanity, a spirit that must prevail….
Two poems by Fabrice B. Pousin: Bodies lay in the smoky scenery flies enjoy an undue repast in the sun scents have vanished in the foul air in his uniform the little man grins his lieutenants mimic his gaze to flatter.
Three Poems by Christopher Merrill: Not ramrod certainty but delicate, Persistent excavation of beliefs And truths disguised as forms of shapeliness, Arranging vowels, consonants, and stresses In lines more musical than politic.
Christopher Merrill in Conversation with Kalpna Singh-Chitnis Christopher Merrill stands as one of the most influential literary figures of his generation, distinguished not only as a poet, writer, and translator, but also as an educator and cultural ambassador. From 2000 to 2025, he served as Director of the International Writing Program at the University of…
A poem by Matvii Smirnov: They will be old and wise when they are back from the war. Where they had gone was no place for a fine metaphor…
