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 94, Volume 20 Number 2, November - December 1993.

Three Poems Clive Wilmer

Kaspar Hauser
Who wanted to be a horseman
Who wanted to be what his father had been before him

Who had no father, who had no mother
Who could not ride
Who sprang fully-formed from nowhere

Who knew the floor of a stable
better than he knew the world or knew himself
Who could not tell who had fed him or sustained him

Who lacked speech
Who could not put into words
where he had come from or what was to be his end
Who could not describe the world
Who could not define it

On whom the sins of the fathers were visited
Who was innocent, who was fallen
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image