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 242, Volume 44 Number 6, July - August 2018.

New in Berlin translated by Donald Gardner

Translated from the Dutch by Donald Gardner
Maria Barnas
I
It’s the day I’ve started writing
in books in pencil admittedly
but one with a sharp point
and ineradicable in various ways.

It’s Der Untergeher the first novel     
that I read in German
in which I keep on writing possible meanings,
like fragile vases, in the margin.

It’s the language that I make my own
as I gather words in Kreuzberg.

It’s in the Nostitzstraße that I find plenty.
Gute Nacht Einsamkeit ich bin so gern allein mit dir
someone has written in neat letters on the wall
by the cocktail bar where men don’t enter
only women who look like girls.

It’s the city I don’t mind living in
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image