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 27, Volume 9 Number 1, September - October 1982.

Patagonian Welsh Andrew Motion

A tea-towel spread on the piano lid
is her only map of Wales CAERNARFON
handwritten in wobbly capitals, Swansea,
I come from. Caernarfon was Gwilym's place.
How are the morals at home these days? Down?


Down. Her visitor nods, and his rockingchair
staggers an inch with a dry crack. I knew it.
I'm better off here, where I understand.
I'm never lonely-there's always the valley,
and someone such as yourself, passing through
.

He is up by the window now, not listening,
daydreaming his journey ahead: pampas
blank for miles, and the desert beyond-
a thorny, parched, three-day trek
into Porto Madryn. You're all the same,

you young. Explorers! Writers with nothing
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image