Dashboard Horus: A Bird's Eye View of the Universe

  © Sanjukta Kar      Sanjukta Kar is a  talented, multidisciplinary, contemporary artist from Asansol, West Bengal. Pen-and-ink drawings are her forte. She loves to experiment with other mediums and works with them with equal ease. She believes in sharing, caring, and also teaches children. Kar completed "Ankan Ratna" in Fine Art (Painting), from Bangiya Sangeet Parishad, which is affiliated to Rabindra Bharati University. She also attended Charukala Parishad Camp in West Bengal. Kar also works for the development of other artists. Covid times have been really tough for artists. To keep their art alive, keep artists engrossed,  and get them to show their presence, Kar arranges various events. She’s participated in many competitions and exhibitions.

  “Six times nominated for a Pushcart, once for Best of the Net, I am the author of six books of poetry, most recently These Days of Simple Mooring , winner of the Blue Light Press Book Award. Poems have appeared in journals including Calyx, Rattle, Mantis, River Styx, Ellipsis, Poet Lore, Comstock Review, Baltimore Review, Nimrod, Cider Press Review, Poetry East, Shenandoah , and numerous anthologies.” The Journey From Scratch Describing the world is easier than finding a place in it. Richard Siken I thought I’d make Siken’s sentence my epigraph because he’d compressed down to its pith a modicum of wisdom that zings straight to the thing. Saved for its certainty, I waited for the ping to plunge poetically into the quest; finally poked, I started from scratch, and found I didn’t believe a word of it. Journeys begin in the body, extracted from dreams and green longings. I was born, stood, walked, a world’s map before me, magnification of Frost’s two paths, from hamlets to continent...

  Michael Dwayne Smith is the author of five books, including a forthcoming poetry collection, Shaking Music from the Angry Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, September 2025); his work haunts many literary houses, including Heavy Feather Review, ONE ART, Third Wednesday, New World Writing Quarterly, decomP, Heron Tree, Gargoyle, Monkeybicycle , and Star 82 Review . He's a recipient of the Hinderaker Poetry Prize, the Polonsky Prize for fiction, and several Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net nominations. He lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family, rescued horses, and Calamity the California calico cat. Do You Remember the Last Stars of Visalia? We took a Greyhound up Route 99, chugging through San Joaquin Valley, the day overtaken with haze and drizzle, past lingering rolls of farmland, graffitied bridges, little Tipton’s railroad ghosts, knots of trees tied to the Tule Rivers, through Tulare, small fieldhand towns dotted with pickups and boots and cantinas, us chatting up the ...