Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 144, Volume 28 Number 4, March - April 2002.

Four Poems Peter Campion


After Hesiod

I read by my little cone of light on our flight home.
    The port-holes were black at first. But that poem

Gave a bird's-eye of a city. So I tried to scan
    For roads beside the margin. When they ran

In a slender line, like pixels wrapping round a string,
    I shut the book and stared below the wing.

Was it Portland? No answer from other cones of light.
    Just a lap-top on a tray. Somebody's white

Crown of hair, almost translucent, utterly still.
    And I felt, on my ribs, a constricting chill,

As I thought how those other people shone separate
    In the lights they flipped on, though they fit,

Somehow, in their lives, into the spreading grid.
    I shook it off. Then the chill returned when I hid

My head in the book, when the poem described how, 'Past the hills
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image