PN Review at 50 - Part Two
What does PN Review mean to you?
In honour of our 50th anniversary, we asked contributors and friends of PN Review what the journal means to them…
Rachel Mann: ‘I know of no other periodical which so consistently shakes me from my complacency and disrupts my instincts towards literary dogmatism. Every couple of months, its appearance signals a kind of good trouble in my reading life. PN Review has never felt more essential.’
Robert Minhinnick: ‘For me, submitting poetry to PN Review was a major challenge. Actually having something published there was an extraordinary compliment. And it still is. I’m always grateful - and a little amazed - when and if my work appears there. Diolch yn fawr o Gymru! PNReview.’
Horatio Morpurgo: ‘Abdellatif Laȃbi’s “Letter to My Friends Overseas”, sent piecemeal from a Moroccan prison, was reassembled on the outside following his instructions. Right next to its English translation (PNR 230) is what Rodin said to Rilke ‘when we were leaving Chartres by train.’ PN Review unsettles every time. That’s why it’s a lifeline.’
Sinéad Morrissey: ‘In 1994 I was living in Germany, trying to improve my German, heal a broken heart and write better poems. I sent a few of them by post; included an international reply coupon (what days!). Waited weeks. Heard back. Yes, incredibly. A mainstay over three writing decades – PN Review, thank you.’
Jeremy Over: ‘First the regular happy arrival of the Hotspur with Absent Minded Albert, Catapult Kennedy and Limp Along Leslie, then a few adolescent years of silence before PNR came along and I learned to see through the apparent austerity to the adventures within of John Ashbery, Christopher Middleton, Friederike Mayröcker, etc.’
Andrew Wynn Owen: ‘PNR to me? Attentive editorials. John Clegg’s buoyant incisions. Rebecca Watts’s cascades of lyric. Frederic Raphael’s waggish peregrinations. Much else. Not walking in the footsteps of past giants, but among living ones. Run by people who truly care about poetry. The last of the great literary journals.’
Marjorie Perloff: ‘From its beginnings in 1963 to the present, PNR has been unique in its openness to so many diverse poetries as well as its global reach. The generosity of its inclusions and their high quality has always been remarkable. Let us salute Michael Schmidt who made it all happen!’
Carl Phillips: ‘I’m a relative newcomer to the PNR pages as a contributor, but I’ve long admired the journal for how it gives a wonderful sense of contemporary poetry in the UK and Ireland for those of us on the other side of the ocean. I’m deeply honored to have had my work appear for the first time in PNR a little over a year ago – which is to say, PNR has also been a supportive introducer of my work to a new audience, for which I’m so grateful. Happy anniversary – here’s to another fifty years!’
Frederic Raphael: ‘During Michael Schmidt's untiring tenure, PNR has evolved from strait-gated solemnity to cosmopolitan, undogmatic literacy. The magazine stands alone in its demanding, wide-ranging magnanimity. The Catullan principle of variatio distresses monotony; the cheap and rancorous find no lodging. PNR is an exemplary incitement to a culture of common decency.’
Anthony Rudolf: ‘PNR means more to me, as a reader, than any magazine since the days when, young, I awaited the regular arrival of Stand, Agenda and The Review. As a contributor, I trust Michael's judgment completely, thanks to his comment fifty years ago: "Even though we are close friends, I will not automatically publish everything you send me". And he doesn't.’
Claudine Toutoungi: ‘What a panoply of diversely brilliant voices, perspectives and arguments are to be found within PN Review. And what a crucial home it’s been to fearless and fascinating writing of every kind over five decades, consistently offering in each issue an oh-so-necessary artistic shot in the arm of inspiration and delight.’
Marina Warner: ‘PN Review has introduced me to poet after poet who have become lodestars - in my life as in many others’. I marvel that , in the thick of mostly hostile cultural politics over the last 50 years, Michael Schmidt has been able, through boundless energy, enthusiasm, and discernment, to stretch the horizons of readers and writers, reinvigorate the literary conversation, and keep alive a shared sense of the importance and wonder of poetry.’
Rebecca Watts: ‘My unofficial response is that PNR means Michael, which means I feel happy, edified, looked after. But no doubt everyone will say that (and he might get a big head). How about this: PN Review is like the operational hub of a global intelligence network. The world is wide, it says: explore, observe, interrogate, interpret: report back. Complexities and contradictions welcome. Ambition and invention encouraged. Its outlook is nurturing and expansive, like the best sort of home. We would be unmoored without it.’
Gregory Woods: ‘I find PN Review reassuringly challenging both to write for and to read. It braces and embraces poetry. Informed by but not in thrall to tradition, discriminating in its encouragement of the new, resistant to insularity, serious, funny... How many other publications are there that so fully respect the art?’
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