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 224, Volume 41 Number 6, July - August 2015.

Two Poems Sheenagh Pugh
The Monk and the Margin

The most holy saint, both before and after her death, performed many notable miracles; would that the warming of this scriptorium had been among them. I trace gold letters with blue, numbed fingers. It is reported for a truth that roses would spring up where she walked. My window is etched with frost-flowers.Little devils apply toasting-forks
to the toes of the damned. A flying
dragon blows the winter forest from
white to red.
She had taken a vow of chastity and, being threatened with marriage, embarked with fifty maidens in a small boat, in which they fled to preserve their virtue. Which the LORD approving,  brought them through many storms to an island,  where the boat was wrecked, but them He saved alive, and untouched of man.Among the waves do fish and
dolphins and all the creatures of the
sea couple with such  joy, they leap
from my pen.
On this island was no sustenance, nor had they the means of fishing, but the LORD caused great shoals of fish to leap from the sea, and the stones of the beach became hot, so that they were cooked as they landed. So too caused He a dead tree to grow heavy with all manner of fruit. Today is a fast day. My head is light; I am so empty, I could fly.A fox wheels a barrow of apples.
...

Searching, please wait... animated waiting image