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 270, Volume 49 Number 4, March - April 2023.

Three Poems Oluwaseun Olayiwola
Beacon

Just secrets to the sea
is what we were, the moon

inside us, waxing,
as if astonishment, slipping
like oysters through

our throats, were
a type of force, the frozen
girdle of purple lips

struggling,
not to breathe, but with breath –

In the end, we made it
to the lighthouse, which was
never the point.

We climbed a ladder to the top
because there were no stairs



Night on the Thames Path

To have settled in the fraternal space between play and fight
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image