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)
Next Issue Sinead Morrissey 'The Lightbox' Philip Terry 'What is Poetry' Ned Denny 'Nine Poems after Verlaine' Sasha Dugdale 'On learning that Russian mothers buy their soldier sons lucky belts inscribed with Psalm 90 to wear into battle' Rod Mengham 'Cold War Hot Air'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 74, Volume 16 Number 6, July - August 1990.

Holiday Peter Sansom

From here it looks finished.
The splintered house where we stayed,
three miles away, five -
shutters tied back against a wind
the locals have a name for,
scraggy wildflowers in vases,
the best nature can do
in the circumstances. And you
praising everything, talking
about clarity of line and thought,

keeping your public face
but rounding on a boy of eighteen,
'We're English', in the café-tabac at
the merest suggestion, then laughing.
At home you'd go to pieces over nothing,
the kettle boiled dry, a laddered stocking:
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image