We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the poets, writers, reviewers, and translators whose work has made “Summer Horizon: The Sixteenth Edition of Life and Legends” possible. Your contributions continue to enrich the magazine and deepen the literary conversations we hope to share with our readers. This edition includes a special feature honoring Jack Foley,…
A Season of Renewal: Life and Legends Fifteen
April brings Poetry Month, and with it our Spring 2026 Edition. We extend our warm greetings to all our readers, writers, and the wider literary community. In this edition, we are proud to present a rich selection of features, including conversations, reviews, and poems that reflect diverse voices and experiences. We are also delighted to…
The Cruelty: An Interview of Candice Louisa Daquin by Rob Vollmar
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.
A Teacher, a Traveler, and a Torchbearer: Sojourning with Poet Christopher Merrill
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…
The Dust Draws Its Face on the Wind
The Dust Draws Its Face on the Wind, a book review by Tulasi Acharya The Dust Draws Its Face on the Wind (HarperCollins) by Avinash Shrestha Translated by Rohan Chhetri “Dust Draws its face on the Wind,” a collection of Nepali poems by Avinash Shrestha and their translations by Rohan Chetri, winner of a pen/Heim…
Bilal Al Masri
A poem by Bilal Al Masri, translated from Arabic by Dr. Anba Jawi, MBE, and Dr. Mohamad Haj Mohamad A Story I Like smoke dispersing,words distance themselvesas you and I return to being strangers,just two characters lost in a long story,an endless one, whose sad authoris uncertain which way to turn. II When you are…
Compassion Without Consolation: The Tragic Vision of John Irving
Essay by Jeffrey-Michael Kane Standfirst: For fifty years, some critics have played “John Irving Bingo” — ticking off orphanages and wrestling matches, readable prose and recurring grief — while missing the writer standing in front of them. Irving is not a sentimental novelist who keeps failing to be serious. He is a tragic novelist in…
Josiane Kouagheu
my brother, my torturer (xxxxxxxxxiii) May 8, 2026. Cité de Billes.Douala. Cameroon. my narrownight always behave like the squire.it is filled with potholes. and when thesleeping guitars, the toxic angels &rebels of my brother wind, it becomesa gutter of aches. i drown inside thespraying. my lean breath hurtles andmy body chokes out. the sleeping guitars,the…
Fiona Hartmann
Samodiva He took you, nymph, from your springyou left the pool with water as clear as tearshe saw your naked beauty only as womannot wildernessyou protect the woods, the spruce and the pinebecause there will always be menbe men who bury their axes into barkuntil they strip it of its dark dressunveiled to its golden…
Sarah Das Gupta
Seema Speaks “I am part of an Indian army, an invisible army,a hidden force, an underground battalion,an army of twenty million women construction workers.I have stolen a few minutes from mixing cementto have a few words with you. A few minutes away from the heat,the dust, the pollution, the worry about my daughterback in the…
Ace Boggess
We Understood Each Other After years together & years apart &years like pausing a tedious film, we recognized subtle sides, insides,insights, what made you you & me me. My embarrassment, your success—you wrote a book, which I applauded— warmth overwhelmed me, joyas though your new self-worth were mine. We left no room for politics, religions,past…
Carl Landauer
Of Dire Combustion and Confused Events Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957)after Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) I worry about the horses,dashing, galloping into thickestof impenetrable fogs. Out and back again,they return to view, whinnying with each turn,in endless, forced gallop under their two warriors.Only the Doppler effect of drumming hoovestells me when they are comingand when…
Remembering Jack Foley
Jack Foley in Conversation with Kalpna Singh-Chitnis Speech come to those who have no need for anything but air ~ Jack Foley Once, I asked Jack Foley how he would like the world to remember him. He replied: “As a good poet and as someone who changed people’s minds in certain respects. Someone who said…
The Weight of Sound
The Unbearable Patience of Desire: On Mariano Zaro’s The Weight of Sound A book review by José Enrique Medina The Weight of Sound (Walton Well Press) a poetry collection by Mariano Zaro The Weight of Sound by Mariano Zaro does something most poetry collections only pretend todo: it holds still. And in that stillness, the…
Forough Farrokhzad: Translated from Farsi by Zahra Feizbakhsh Tavana
Another Birth All my being is a verse of darknessthat will take you, repeating within itselfto the dawn of eternal blossoming and growthsin this verse, I sighed you forthin this verseI bound you to the tree, to the water, to the fire. Life, perhaps,is a long street where a woman holding a basket passes every…