The 250th Issue of PN Review

In November this journal will reach the milestone of 250 issues, and in order to celebrate this we will be releasing one piece of poetry, criticism or journalism each week from the 46-year back catalogue which continues to exemplify PN Review's conviction that poetry, at its best, is enactive, and what it does matters more …

Quarantine Conversations 2: Lorna Goodison

During this period of social distancing and self-isolation, it’s impossible to press an ear to a keyhole and overhear the discretions and indiscretions of people talking about poetry, its forms and dictions, freedoms and responsibilities. The PN Review blog is bringing you some Quarantine Conversations, good company during the lock-down. I have chosen them from …

Quarantine Conversations 1: Yves Bonnefoy

During this period of social distancing and self-isolation, it’s impossible to press an ear to a keyhole and overhear the discretions and indiscretions of people talking about poetry, its forms and dictions, freedoms and responsibilities. The PN Review blog is bringing you some Quarantine Conversations, good company during the lock-down.  I have chosen them from all five …

Five Beds, Respiratory Ward: Lisa Kelly

This poem is by Lisa Kelly, taken from PN Review 244. Lisa's debut collection A Map Towards Fluency was published in 2019. Five Beds, Respiratory Wardafter Ithaka: Mary is waiting, breathing and waiting,breathing shallowly, waiting and waitingfor a breeze to carry her vessel to the Brompton.A sea-sick shanty, I’m going to the Brompton,soon I’ll be setting out for …

Two Poems by Edwin Morgan

Today, the 27th April 2020, is Edwin Morgan's 100th birthday! Read these two poems, published in PN Review in 2000 to celebrate. See the work that the Edwin Morgan Trust is doing by clicking here. At Eighty Push the boat out, campañeros,Push the boat out, whatever the sea.Who says we cannot guide ourselvesthrough the boiling …

'The Belief in Obeah' and Other Poems Vladimir Lucien

This poem is taken from PN Review 213, Volume 40 Number 1, September - October 2013. The Belief in Obeahfor Ras Biko The moth that entersyour house at night is a grudgethat somebody is holdingagainst you. It half-sits, botheredby your light and the roofover your head. It spreadsits small evening whereverit lands, over the thingsyou love …

Four Poems Jane Yeh

This poem is taken from PN Review 188, Volume 35 Number 6, July - August 2009. Rhode Island Waltz We tilt five degreesOff of true, precarious in photograph, stiff In three-quarter time. Our rotationIs unnatural as architecture. A palace seen in cross-section, Fiercely rendered. A mansard roof slippingFrom the lintels in stop-motion, intricate In betrayal. This …

A Presiding Spirit: Elizabeth Bishop's Poetic Afterlives Edward Allen

This article is taken from PN Review 208, Volume 39 Number 2, November - December 2012. When Elizabeth Bishop's drafts and fragments appeared in 2006, the spectre of a vexed and mutable vocalist was raised. 'Though it may not radically change our sense of Bishop's voice,' Marit J. Macarthur mused, flicking her way through the 'startling' …

Pearl Lines 973-1092 Simon Armitage

This poem is taken from PN Review 228, Volume 42 Number 4, March - April 2016. Note on the Translation Heartbroken and in mourning, a man describes the terrible sorrow he feels at the loss of his beautiful and irreplaceable ‘Perle’. In August, with flowers and herbs decorating the earth and perfuming the air, he visits a green …

Morning by Donald Davie

Donald Davie was a frequent collaborator and later editor on Poetry Nation and the subsequent PN Review, releasing as many as 60 articles and poems like this one. "Prosopopoiea" suggests a moral drive behind the personification present in the poem, and since Davie (finding himself among the cohort of British poets who aimed for sparsity …

Bohemia Lies by the Sea (Translated by Frank Beck)

Anselm Kiefer , Bohemia Lies by the Sea, 1996 In this week's post we have included a copy of Bohemia Lies by the Sea by renowned Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann and translated by Frank Beck. Some might be interested to know that bearing the same name as Bachmann's poem is the work of the internationally recognised …