Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 275
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 240, Volume 44 Number 4, March - April 2018.

Four Poems Angela Leighton
Janáćek’s Notes

as he notated his daughter’s dying breaths

I time you, dearest, to the last minute now,
hold your departing to a page of notes,
scribble each phrase your breathing makes
in breves, minims, in the pause between
each catch, acciaccatura, of your breath –
its stress and start, then a rest – rest…
I hear its sparing quiet on your chest.

I time you, living, to save your breath,
Olga, Jenufa, in the world’s free air
that’s large enough to sustain the tune
we make, breathing, still lightly keeping
time for a time till, two against three,
these sudden faint syncopations misalign,
and you’re out – on a beat much wider than mine.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image