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 278, Volume 50 Number 6, July - August 2024.

from Kit Smart’s Ark Judith Woolf
for Neil Corcoran


A is for Anchovy

Let David Attenborough rejoice with the Anchovy –
I beheld and lo! a great multitude!

blindsided by youth
you saw the seas glitter
each fish a silver sliver
enough, you thought, for ever

clear-sighted now in age
you hold a blue planet
like a diminishing bait ball
do not let it fall


D is for Dragon-fly

Let David Hockney bless with the Dragon-fly,
who sails over the pond by the wood-side and feedeth on the cressies.

in recognition of secret knowledge shared
let Dürer’s tiny dragonfly take flight
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image