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 Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 156, Volume 30 Number 4, March - April 2004.

Whole Words Carol Rumens

(For Rebecca)

Another mute bites down, a new mutation
Roots out its own tongue. We blank such losses
As `friendly fire'. The language we shared round
With such imperial fairness, keeping only
What was ours, can't not be ours. But now it can't be ours.

We asked to be a voice, even a footnote
To February, a true note. That we drowned
In our own throats perhaps should not amaze us,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image