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 174, Volume 33 Number 4, March - April 2007.

The Seafarer Chris McCully


for Derek Britton

Truth? I can seal it
tell its stories:
I owned often,
how I've borne both
known sorrow's surges
wave-roiling terror -
the narrow night-watch
as the cliffs unsteadied.
my feet fettered,
clamped, ice-locked, though
hot round the heart,
at the spirit's tiredness.
those day-dawdlers
how I lived winter,
...

Searching, please wait... animated waiting image