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…
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…
Raven On The Moaners’ Bench: A review by Richard Meadows Raven On The Moaners’ Bench (Four Way Books,2025) a poetry collection by Gary Copeland Lilley In Gary Copeland Lilley’s latest collection, Raven On The Moaners’ Bench (Four Way Books, 2025), muddy waters are made clear through powerful written acts of redemption. These are not white…
A poem by Ihor Pavlyuk: The chirping swallows swung in haste And flew across.
I heard the medals clink against His iron cross, And then I gave him the book I wrote. So, there we sat – Two sober men by the endless road, So clear, so sad.
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…
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…
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.
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….
Candice Louisa Daquin wears many hats. She’s a licensed psychotherapist, a poet, an editor and a co-ordinator of several social forward projects. This November, she’s added another hat to the tree, novelist. The Cruelty (FlowerSong Press, 2025) is a survivor’s tale that refuses to look away from unadulterated Evil in its midst.
