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 Between Languages, Howard Cooper 'Ur-language' Oksana Maksymchuk 'Multifarious Beast' Zinovy Zinik 'My Mother Tongue, My Fatherland' Philip Terry 'Lost Languages' Victoria Moul 'Bad Latin, Barbarous Inglishe'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 47, Volume 12 Number 3, January - February 1986.

Balsam Poplar Michael Hamburger

As a sucker, mere stick, awry,
This one was found and uprooted,
Took to the place, and within five years,
True, straight, it has risen
Not at the rate of the Lombardy
Whose one aspiration is to become
A landmark, leaving the slower oaks
To compete for breath, dwarfed as cottages are
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image