Editor Speak
February 2026
February arrives as a month of voices—listening, speaking, remembering why books still matter in a world that rushes past them. This edition of The Wise Owl is our Talking Books special, a celebration of conversation between poets and pages, writers and readers, art and silence.
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At its heart are two remarkable spotlight interviews. We speak with George Szirtes, the award-winning British poet whose work traverses memory, exile, and history with rare moral clarity, and Karen Solie, winner of the TS Eliot Prize 2025, whose poems remind us how the lyric can still think, argue, and astonish. These conversations are less about accolades and more about the slow, enduring work of attention that poetry demands.
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This issue also brings together voices longlisted and shortlisted for The Wise Owl Literary Awards 2026. Our Talking Books section features rich exchanges with Meera Ganapathi, Siddhartha Menon, Ranu Uniyal, Nandita Bose, Daneesh Majid, Abhimanyu Kumar, and Aletta Andre—writers whose work stretches across poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, resisting easy categories. We also present engaging conversations on our YouTube channel with Vinita Agrawal (Poetry shortlist), Sanghamitra Chakraborty (Non-fiction shortlist), and Aseem Srivastava (Non-fiction longlist), each offering distinct ways of seeing the contemporary moment.
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The poetry and fiction segments are abuzz with creativity and feature poems and stories by poets and writers from across the globe. As always, the issue is anchored in reading. We review The River Woman by Renu Roy, a book of quiet force, and the film Wake Up Dead Man, which lingers long after the credits roll. Our Visual Art segment turns inward with Harmeet Singh, whose contemporary abstract practice explores silence and material landscapes with meditative intensity.
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Finally, 12th February stands as a red-letter day for us—a moment to celebrate the finest voices in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction at The Wise Owl Literary Awards. This edition is both a lead-up and a tribute: to books that speak, and to conversations that endure.
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The Editor
Our Daily Segment
The Daily Verse
To enjoy poetry everyday, take a look at The Daily Verse.
If you have a yen to share your poetry with our readers, just send in your submissions to editor@thewiseowl.art
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The Wise Owl Events
The Wise Owl Literary Awards 2025
The 1st edition of The Wise Owl Literary Awards 2025 was a resounding success. Catch some glimpses of the Event
The Wise Owl Poetry Collective 2025
The Wise Owl Collective on 30th August celebrated different voices across languages.
The Wise Owl Poetry Collective 2025
The Wise Owl Collective on 1st November celebrated different voices across languages.
The Birth of The Wise Owl
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The year was 2021. COVID-19 had upended our world and altered life as we knew it. Simple joys we once took for granted—meeting friends, shopping, watching films, being part of a crowd—had all been put on hold. I was then posted in Delhi as a senior IRS officer, managing work through the fog of uncertainty and loss.
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The pandemic’s toll was deeply personal. I lost a valued member of my staff—a hardworking office supervisor and cancer survivor—to COVID. Two of my colleagues, one of them a doctor who had volunteered at a Mohalla Clinic, also lost their battles. Another dear batchmate survived, but just barely. Conversations about the fragility of life, once philosophical musings, had suddenly become real and raw.
