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)
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 92, Volume 19 Number 6, July - August 1993.

Some Initial Steps Neil Curry

Supposing he was right, Pascal:
  and that all our miseries
  do stem from an inability
  to sit quietly in our own rooms?
      perhaps I won't go.

And yet Kierkegaard held that,
  if 'one just keeps on walking,
  everything will be all right',
      and we do take steps
      to solve a problem.

Now 'walking is the natural recreation
  for a man who desires not absolutely
  to suppress his intellect,
  but to turn it out to play for a season.'
      and that from Virginia Woolf's father.

The scandal of pedestrianism,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image