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 221, Volume 41 Number 3, January - February 2015.

‘The Misgiving’ and Other Poems Roger Garfitt
The Misgiving

The rowans have lit up along the ridgeway,
such rifts of colour they might be in Hungarian
traditional dress, their berries worn as so many favours
over so many layers, their fringed shawls floating
over embroidered depths.

Persephone descends in the fullness of her power.

So why do I glimpse loops of braid over forester’s green
and pennons stream the length of the ridgeway?
Why are the colours so brave? And why do so many
ride down to their deaths?



The Hackle

All five foot of him stretches up to the hackle
on his beret, the white plume tipped with red
that bloods him as a Fusilier and might be his avatar.

He holds his tin outside the Metro station,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image