Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 275
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 58, Volume 14 Number 2, November - December 1987.

Three Poems Peter Robinson

For Lavinia

When she re-entered - from mutilation, rape
- unspeaking in a painted Roman landscape,
I couldn't rid my own mind of those shapes . . .
for you had also stared and strayed and cried

without a sound, besides the wind through trees,
rain on the road; what could I ever say to ease
your unfathomable hurt, now each turned phrase
unnerves - as bad weather does dumb scars,

the shame she's not permitted to outlive?
It dries my tongue and lips till they can't move.
And what would I be trying to achieve?

Lavinia, I've said too much already.

Overlooking Verona

Had the gate attendant tried to cheat us
by short-changing, I wouldn't know -
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image