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 100, Volume 21 Number 2, November - December 1994.

Two Poems Justin Quinn

To Jan Neruda

I
If I wanted to tell people who you were
First off I'd say that there's a hill
Which stands above a turning river,
And stretched along its top a castle -
The city crystallising outwards
The last nine hundred years or so
On this basis, around lakes, through swards.
Beneath the castle, row on row
Of baroque tenements are pursed,
The quarter where your ghost persists.

These days you're pure omniscient narrator.
How often did you raise your head
Mid-way through making characters
To listen to what was being said
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image