Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(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 Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 109, Volume 22 Number 5, May - June 1996.

Three Poems Barbara Folkart


L'écorchée vive
What I long for these days is a wrapping
of skin and subcutaneous fat,
and my soul pladd,
possessed of all the ruminant virtues:
heft, girth and phlegm. Thrift,
no more of this wild taking and spending,
not even the stubbiest
of vestigial wings. A soul without lift,
no yearnings laying waste to it. Not mine,
that heart emaciated by its own desires.




Tree-treachery
Who would have guessed the treachery of birches,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image