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 276
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 248, Volume 45 Number 6, July - August 2019.

Two Poems Gregory O'Brien
Father

‘Buried at sea, yesterday.’
Epitaph for John Patrick O’Brien, as requested


How far from where you are to where
I am, both of us
dusted off, shirts

pressed, trousers adjusted. These songs being
such as
they are. Your hat

you’ll also be needing, that temple
of higher thought, index of
good government.

How far from whence you came
or whence we go
together?

‘A man’s hat,’ you said,
‘should talk
to his shoes.’ Do you believe

there are sufficient days
in a life
for mourning
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image