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 Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 197, Volume 37 Number 3, January - February 2011.

'I reach down one of your books I kept' James McGonigal
Some day it will have to go back –
           och I will return it one day
to another shelf.

Between rust-coloured covers
           the smell of 1950s paper
and an absented look

about this page – as if you’d
           raised your head a minute
to think about what was written.

Descriptions of natural life –
           how water climbs on its own back
to bamboozle rocks in the burn

or leaves and honeysuckle twist
           extravagant knots a passer-by
might brush with his shoulder.

Some day I will turn as if
           to tell you about this –


When did you ever not
           have a view on such matters?
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image