Gale Acuff – Borderless

Editorial

Imagine… Click here to read.

Translations

A translation from Nabendu Ghosh’s autobiography, Eka Naukar Jatri (Journey of a Lonesome Boat), translated by Dipankar Ghosh, from Bengali post scripted by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.

Uehara by Kamaleswar Barua has been translated from Assamese and introduced by Bikash K. Bhattacharya. Click here to read.

Kurigram by Masud Khan has been translated by Professor Fakrul Alam from Bangla. Click here to read.

Bonfire by Ihlwha Choi has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.

Tagore’s Borondala (Basket of Offerings) has been translated by Mitali Chakravarty from Bengali. Click here to read.

Poetry

Click on the names to read the poems

Michael R Burch, Kirpal Singh, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Amit Parmessur, Carl Scharwath, Isha Sharma, Gale Acuff, Anannya Dasgupta, Vaishnavi Saritha, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Pragya Bajpai, George Freek, Sanket Mhatre, Ron Pickett, Asad Latif, Rhys Hughes

Poets, Poetry and Rhys Hughes

In Indian Pale Ale, Rhys Hughes experiments with words and brews. Click here to read.

Conversation

Being fascinated with the human condition and being vulnerable on the page are the two key elements in the writing of fiction, author and poet Heidi North tells Keith Lyons in a candid conversation. Click here to read.

Musings/Slices from Life

Mother Teresa & MF Hussian: Touching Lives

Prithvijeet Sinha muses on how Mother Teresa’s painting by MF Hussain impacted his life. Click here to read.

The Night Shift to Nouméa

Meredith Stephens writes of her sailing adventures to Nouméa. Click here to read.

Musings of a Copywriter

In Simian Surprises, Devraj Singh Kalsi describes monkey antics. Click here to read.

Notes from Japan

In Multicultural Curry, Suzanne Kamata reflects on mingling of various cultures in her home in Japan and the acceptance it finds in young hearts. Click here to read.

Essays

Which way, wanderer? Lyric or screenplay…

Ratnottama Sengupta explores the poetry in lyrics of Bollywood songs, discussing the Sahityotsav (Literary Festival) hosted by the Sahitya Akademi. Click here to read.

One Happy Island

Ravi Shankar takes us to Aruba, a Dutch colony, with photographs and text. Click here to read.

Cadences in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Paul Mirabile explores the stylistic nuances in this classic by James Joyce. Click here to read.

Stories

Heafed

Brindley Hallam Dennis plays with mindsets. Click here to read.

Busun

A Jessie Michael narrates a moving saga of displacement and reservations. Click here to read.

A Wooden Smile

Shubhangi gives us poignant story about a young girl forced to step into the adult world. Click here to read.

The Infallible Business

Sangeetha G tells a story set in a post-pandemic scenario. Click here to read.

Book Excerpts

An excerpt from Robin S. Ngangom’s My Invented Land: New and Selected Poems. Click here to read.

An excerpt from Vikas Prakash Joshi’s My Name is Cinnamon. Click here to read.

Book Reviews

Aruna Chakravarti reviews Bornali Datta’s In A Better Place: A Doctor’s Journey. Click here to read.

Somdatta Mandal reviews Baba Padmanji’s Yamuna’s Journey, translated from Marathi by Deepra Dandekar. Click here to read.

Basudhara Roy reviews Robin Ngangom’s My Invented Land: New and Selected Poems. Click here to read.

Bhaskar Parichha reviews S.Irfan Habib’s Maulana Azad – A Life. Click here to read.

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

I don't want to die, not any more than                                         

anyone else, but in my Sunday 
School class are ten-year-old girls who say they
can't wait and would can themselves except that
they'd go to Hell and burn forever, what
they want is to die and live with Jesus
and when they asked me if I do as well
I said Well, maybe, if I won't get bored
and one got angry and said You're going
to fry in Hell for that someday and her friend
added in the oil of your own skin yet
you'll never be consumed completely and
I said Well, I'm not afraid and she said
We're more afraid for you than you are so
I said How about a kiss? That killed me.


No one wants to die--well, I take that back:

My Sunday School teacher’s sure keen on death
and talks about it every class, she knows
that we're all getting older and some day
we'll all die though probably not the same
day and same way but make no mistake, death
is unavoidable so prepare ye
now to be good enough at least to go
to Heaven and dwell there for eterni
-ty instead of Hell (ditto for Eter
-nity) and we never know when God will
snatch us from life back to Heaven to be
judged a saint or sinner and I want to
see you all in Heaven with me someday.
I added If you go. She has good teeth.

Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. He has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.

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Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles