Tongueless Whispering TW: Sexual Violence Vahni Capildeo This essay, whether or not printed in PN Review, arrives late: late in the inbox of the editors; long after many of the events to which it refers. It is the shadow of another essay, the one I wished to write. I wished to write a detailed analysis of the poet Martin Carter’s ‘Listening to the Land’, a lyric famous in the Caribbean since its appearance in The Hill of Fire Glows Red (1951) but lesser known elsewhere. Carter begins with a reminiscence, using the first instant of address to create a past shared with the addressee, and unknown to the reader.

That night when I left you on the bridge

The reader therefore is suspended: waiting to coalesce with the addressee, if the poem proceeds to recreate the past; accepting a floating and partial state, partaking of ‘I’, ‘you’, and neither, if the poem decides to get over the past and concentrate on creating the present.

Two other pronouns, however, have been invading my mind: the ‘me’ of the #MeToo, which accumulates reports and stories of sexual violence; and a highly sociable ‘he’. Yes, I have been raped, on more than one occasion (by persons known to me, successful credible straightforward-looking white professionals, whom I may meet or with whom I or my colleagues are likely to work; so far as I know, they are unacquainted with one other; they were in my life at different times), and molested by others. This type of incursion (I shall not say ‘experience’) began as early as I can remember, and I do not expect it to stop, I mostly determine ... read more

Jamie Osborn [This conversation took place around the time that Sasha Dugdale was finishing her latest book, Joy, and was preparing to hand over as editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. It was conducted (via email) between northern Spain, Sussex, Brussels and a flight to Moscow.]


Joy starts with a dark stage and a woman speaking. She’s Catherine Blake, wife of William. As the poem develops, memory and care and creation are layered together, and I think there’s an anxiety here that reflects the multiple, uncertain-yet-definite voices of the poem. When Catherine clutches at her body through her clothes, I can’t help feeling that what she is doing anxiously touching at layers of recollection and trying to get a grip on the words searing through her. Maybe one way for the reader to get such a grip is to ask: who’s speaking here?


... read more

Jane Stevenson South Burlingham isn’t far from Norwich but it’s in deep country. Getting there involves navigating smaller and smaller roads into a maze of hedges and big trees, with an occasional stone-built church, the odd overdressed former farmhouse, and once in a while, a working farm. The little Elizabethan house stands back from the road, red brick under a thatched roof, made distinctive by a dramatic three-storey porch adorned with frisky merpersons, and the twin Tudor chimneypots which rise on either side of its pediment like ears. On the other side of a blue-painted farm gate, there is a formal garden with box knots, yew cones and mown grass on either side of a central path. Mature trees nod over the hedge on the left, implying less formal planting behind.

The Old Hall isn’t an easy place to bring into focus, because generally, one is so pleased to ... read more