Most Read... 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)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
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 Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 276, Volume 50 Number 4, March - April 2024.

Divinations Alex Wong
Loved distinctly over-much,
I feel ambivalent force
     go twisting up me:
Winding in the narrow, living channels,
Either way at once
     at every junction;
Self-outmatching,
Indistinct,
But unmistakably itselves.

It issues, sometimes,
     quietly in the roofspace;
Suddenly, on occasion,
     from between

Embarrassment: polite detachment: love:

Like a bloody message
     running fiercely open;
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image