Anne Carson

[JTolle]

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1950.

Anne Carson teaches Classics and Comparative Literature and received her PhD in Greek Poetry. Her work in translation has brought highly original (though at times dubiously accurate) interpretations to writers like Sappho (If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho) and Euripides (Grief Lessons: Four Plays). Her work as a classicist is an important influence on her poetry.

Carson has been a force in poetry since here first collection Glass, Irony, and God in 1992, but gained a much wider readership and a great deal of critical acclaim for her verse novel Autobiography of Red, published in 1998.

It is obvious in noting a few things about Carson that give warning of her strange ways and often eccentric approach to poetry. The fact that her first collection didn't appear until she was 42 (the same age Stevens was when he published Harmonium); the funny biographical note on all her books that reads simply: Anne Carson lives in Canada; her strange course through schooling--dropping twice out from Toronto University despite stellar academic abilities, but eventually going on, after a foray into the world of graphic arts, to receive here PhD.

In her work she displays an intensely experimental proclivity. Reviewers often make reference to the Pound adage "Make It New" and Rimbaud's "One must be absolutely modern" when speaking about her contortions and explorations of the limits of poetry. Her newest collection, Nox, is an accordion-style book-in-a-box journal and journey through letters and found-poetry and photos centering around the death of her brother. Her collection Decreation includes after some single poems, operas, plays, essays, and prose-poems.

Critics like Harold Bloom and writers Susan Sontag and Michael Ondaatje have hailed Carson as a dominant force in late twentieth and early twenty-first century poetry. Though she has been criticized for her obscure subject matter and, from that perspective, the emotional distance thus created. Particular criticism was leveled against Autobiography of Red when some critics pointed out that alternating long lines and short lines did not really constitute 'verse' (the rumor is that Carson has admitted to writing it as a prose novel that she later 'versified', and on reading it you will notice a strong prosaic note to her poem that is also noticeable in much of her other work).

Whatever the opinions on her may be, she is undoubtedly being recognized as a significant poet, receiving a MacArthur and a Guggenheim, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize, and a Lannan among other awards and nominations.

Harold Bloom writes in a book of criticism:

"The Canadian poet Anne Carson is so original and authentic in her works that I can think of only two other poets of her eminence now alive and writing in English: John Ashbery and Geoffrey Hill, and they are both a full generation older."

For a more detailed bio and analysis go here Anne Carson Criticism


Selected works

Eros the Bittersweet (1986) Princeton University Press
Glass, Irony, and God (1992) New Directions Publishing Company
Short Talks (1992) Brick Books
Plainwater (1995) Knopf
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998) Knopf
Economy of the Unlost: Reading Simonides of Ceos with Paul Celan (1999) Princeton University Press
Men in the Off Hours (2001) Knopf
Electra (translation) (2001) Oxford
The Beauty of the Husband (2001) Knopf
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (2002) Knopf
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (2005) Knopf
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (translation) (2006) New York Review Books Classics
An Oresteia (Translation of Agamemnon, Elektra, Orestes. (2009) Faber and Faber
NOX (2010) New Directions

 

[Refus de Sejour]

Nice summary, JTolle. It misses one important point however:

Carson is FANTASTIC!

I'll post a snippet from Glass, Irony, and God later on today. It's electrifying.

One interesting theory I've heard re. Carson is that she's relatively unfamiliar with contemporary poetry (having her background in Classics), which has resulted in her particularly brand of experimentation having a very different feel from most other experimental poets (who tend, it has to be said, to live in each others' pockets). I'm not sure how accurate this is, but it's certainly true she has a unique voice.

 

[JTolle]

Your'e right Carson is definitely FANTASTIC! I've really loved everything I've read of her so far, though I'm struggling with Decreation right now having only Antonioni films to ground me in what she's writing (though I've just begun reading Simone Weil).

I actually was inspired to start this thread because I noticed you had Glass, Irony, and God listed in your fifty favorite books (one collection I have not yet read) and I realized poor Anne Carson had no thread yet!

If what you say about her experimentation is true (and in her case it would be appropriate) it makes me love her work even more.

Have you read her translations? I loved her work with Sappho and read Euripides for the first time through her, but you can tell she's taking a whole lot of liberties.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

I've only read her own poetry (yet), but I really should read her translations sometime.

I'm going to share some snippers from a sequence called "The Life of Towns," which I think she has described as being part of an "ongoing war with punctuation":

TOWN OF THE DEATH OF SIN

What is sin?
You asked.
The moon screamed past us.
All at once I saw you.
Just drop sin and go.
Flashing after the moon.
Black as a wind over the forest.


LUCK TOWN

Digging a hole.
To bury his child alive.
So that he could find food for his aged mother.
One day.
A man struck gold.


ENTGEGENW[FONT=DejaVu Sans, sans-serif]?RTIGUNG TOWN

I heard you coming after me.
Like a lion through the underbrush.
And I was afraid.
I heard you.
Crashing down over flagpoles.
And I covered my ears.
I felt the walls of the buildings.
Sway once all along the street.
And I crouched low on my heels.
In the middle of the room.
Staring hard.
Then the stitches came open.
You went past.

[/FONT]

A New Zealand poet I know - an admirer of Carson - has written poems using this same end-punctuated style. I'm afraid not everyone can pull it off.

 

[Mirabell]

I'm afraid not everyone can pull it off.

One is tempted to add: not even she can.


Just sayin.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

One is tempted to add: not even she can.

I disagree entirely. The punctuation works on two levels: (1), it heightens the staccato rhythm of the text, similar to something out of Gertrude Stein or Beckett. (2), it keeps the reader's mind hopping, caught between the force-of-habit of pausing at a period and the realization that the sentences, syntactically, span these periods.

The underlying sentences themselves, however, need to be muscularly rhythmical, otherwise the whole thing falls flat (as in the case of the NZ poet).

But that's just me .

 

[JTolle]

I like what you've said about her punctuation in these poems. I've mostly resisted her period-ridden poems by ignoring the stops and just reading on through. It makes me want to re-read some older stuff.

Where is her "The Life of Towns" collected?

 

[Refus de Sejour]

I like what you've said about her punctuation in these poems. I've mostly resisted her period-ridden poems by ignoring the stops and just reading on through. It makes me want to re-read some older stuff.

Where is her "The Life of Towns" collected?

I think I got it from The Best of the Best American Poetry, edited by Bloom (which seems odd, considering Carson is Canadian; maybe they go by country of publication). I don't have my copy with me at the moment, but will let you know once I've checked the pub. info.

 

[Eric]

Judging by the poems posted up by Refus de Sejour, the use of the simple expedient of the full-stop is important and interesting. It does all the things that RdS says in #6.

My only question would be: does she do this all the time, because in excess, such a trick could detract and annoy, as the garrulous Mirabell suggests? In small doses it works well. But as RdS warns: not everyone can pull it off.

What does Entgegenw?rtigung mean in this context? I haven't got a German dictionary handy and I wanna know. Because in the Realm of Monolingualism, the two-languaged writer is king or queen or whatever. I'm always a bit wary of English-language poets who throw in foreign words. It can result in one-upmanship. If the use of the word is code-speak for "I've read about phenomenology, so aren't I clever?" then it's a bit of a turn-off.

Hello Mirabell, one sophisticated comment for you and your brother Shigekuni today: boo. I bet that made you jump, but now I'm indulging in garrulity myself.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

My only question would be: does she do this all the time, because in excess, such a trick could detract and annoy, as the garrulous Mirabell suggests? In small doses it works well. But as RdS warns: not everyone can pull it off.

She doesn't do this all the time; only in "The Life of Towns" as far as I know. Autobiography of Red and Glass, Irony, and God don't feature it. I agree, it is an effective but limited technique.

What does Entgegenw?rtigung mean in this context? I haven't got a German dictionary handy and I wanna know. Because in the Realm of Monolingualism, the two-languaged writer is king or queen or whatever. I'm always a bit wary of English-language poets who throw in foreign words. It can result in one-upmanship. If the use of the word is code-speak for "I've read about phenomenology, so aren't I clever?" then it's a bit of a turn-off.

No idea what it means . But I can assure you Carson's use of "foreign" words is not gratuitous.

 

[Eric]

I immediately looked up the term Entgegenw?rtigung on the internet and found that they mentioned Merleau-Ponty and Husserl and maybe Heidegger. That's why of course I mentioned phenomenology.

I got the idea that this was a sophisticated name-dropping exercise. If there happens to be an American town of that name, fair enough. But otherwise she' s name-dropping for those who have heard the term (though they may not know what it means).

When Andrew Motion used the word "nienasycenie" in his poem The Beach, the Towel, My Dad, and Nienasycenie all of us really sophisticated people who used to buy books by Witkacy in Krak?w, knew immediately: Motion has moved in the direction of either catastrophism or pure form.

As you can see in the picture below, used by Motion as the cover of his poetry collection Nienasycenie and Doreen, which includes the above poem, foreign words can be embedded in sense:

Motion himself was there, but is just out of shot as Witkacy, a bit of a narcissus, hogged the whole set of lavatory mirrors. But Witkacy persuaded Motion that a sense of "nienasycenie" is the clue to all good poetry and that the multi-facetted mirror pose is one of the most satisfying.

"Nienasycenie" - what a wonderful word. I never get enough of "nienasycenie" - or "wscieklizna", for that matter, a word I'm mad about.

 

[Mirabell]

But I can assure you Carson's use of "foreign" words is not gratuitous.

Eric is right. It IS gratuitious, a kind of empty name-dropping. I read it and thought *sigh* Heidegger again. Because that was ? la mode a few years ago, and all the hip 'poets' included a vapid Heiderggerian reference or two.
So, not surprised. But then I always considered Carson a poseur first, and a poet second.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

I immediately looked up the term Entgegenw?rtigung on the internet and found that they mentioned Merleau-Ponty and Husserl and maybe Heidegger. That's why of course I mentioned phenomenology.

I got the idea that this was a sophisticated name-dropping exercise. If there happens to be an American town of that name, fair enough. But otherwise she' s name-dropping for those who have heard the term (though they may not know what it means).

Umm, "The Life of Towns" is not a realistic poem-cycle about real towns in America, Canada, or anywhere else. As far as I know, there is no town called "Town of the Death of Sin" anywhere either.

I'd recommend you read the entire sequence, or at least the portion reproduced in the Bloom anthology, before you pass such judgement.

Eric is right. It IS gratuitious, a kind of empty name-dropping. I read it and thought *sigh* Heidegger again. Because that was ? la mode a few years ago, and all the hip 'poets' included a vapid Heiderggerian reference or two.
So, not surprised. But then I always considered Carson a poseur first, and a poet second.

You'll be happy to know there is also a poem called "Heidegger Town" in this sequence

Contemporary North American poetry is my research area. If Carson is a poseur, then the other poets of that continent must send your poseur-meter through the roof.

Another poem, at the Poetry Foundation: "The Book of Isaiah".


One of my favourite bits:

Isaiah opened his mouth.

A sigh came from Isaiah?s mouth, the sigh grew into a howl.

The howl ran along the brooks to the mouth of the brooks

and tore the nets of the fishers who cast angle into the brooks

and confounded the workers in fine flax who weave networks

and broke their purpose.

The howl rolled like a rolling thing past slain men and harvests and spoils

and stopped in a ditch between two walls.

Then Isaiah unclamped his mouth from the howl.

Isaiah let his mouth go from the teat.

Isaiah turned, Isaiah walked away.

Isaiah walked for three years naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered
to the shame of the nation.

All night you could see the Branch roaming against the sky like a soul.


III.

Isaiah walked for three years in the valley of vision.

In his jacket of glass he crossed deserts and black winter mornings.

The icy sun lowered its eyelids against the glare of him.

God stayed back.

Now Isaiah had a hole in the place where his howl had broken off.

All the while Isaiah walked, Isaiah?s heart was pouring out the hole.

One day Isaiah stopped.

Isaiah put his hand on the amputated place.

Isaiah?s heart is small but in a way sacred, said Isaiah, I will save it.

Isaiah plugged the hole with millet and dung.

God watched Isaiah?s saving action.

God was shaking like an olive tree.

Now or never, whispered God.

God reached down and drew a line on the floor of the desert in front of Isaiah?s feet.

Silence began.

 

[Mirabell]

Contemporary North American poetry is my research area. If Carson is a poseur, then the other poets of that continent must send your poseur-meter through the roof.

It's mine as well (well, US poetry), and yeah. There is this inexplicable insane explosion of prize-winning mediocrity during the 1980s, but Carson can pose with the best of em.

 

[JTolle]

Regarding the Town/Heidegger/Carson is a sophisticated name-dropper discussion: She usually structures her poetic sequences around the ideas of one, or intertwining ideas of two or more artistic/religious figures (Antonioni and Longinus; Porete, Weil, and Sappho; Keats; Lazarus) and investigates the meanings of certain of their ideas or actions, so I'm sure her use of Heidegger (in context) is not simply gratuitous.

It's mine as well (well, US poetry), and yeah. There is this inexplicable insane explosion of prize-winning mediocrity during the 1980s, but Carson can pose with the best of em.

Carson can also stand with the best of them. Mirabell, I'm wondering what of Carson's you've read that makes you judge her so harshly when so many have lauded her (that's not to say shitty poets aren't lauded sometimes).

 

[Refus de Sejour]

Much contemporary U.S/Canadian poetry - or at least, much avant garde/experimental poetry - has shifted its focus away from the poem itself to emphasise identity politics, linguistic theory, and/or political theory. Who wrote the poem (their ethnicity, gender, social background and even the poetic movement they are aligned with), the language theories it engages with, and the ways in which it undermines the status quo (non-standard grammar will save us all! Yay!) become more important than the words in themselves.

In that Carson's poetry does not depend on these extra-textual factors, I would consider her poseur-rating very low.

I'm curious, Mirabell - in the US at the moment, who would you consider to be a "genuine" poet?

 

[Mirabell]

Much contemporary U.S/Canadian poetry - or at least, much avant garde/experimental poetry - has shifted its focus away from the poem itself to emphasise identity politics, linguistic theory, and/or political theory. Who wrote the poem (their ethnicity, gender, social background and even the poetic movement they are aligned with), the language theories it engages with, and the ways in which it undermines the status quo (non-standard grammar will save us all! Yay!) become more important than the words in themselves.

In that Carson's poetry does not depend on these extra-textual factors, I would consider her poseur-rating very low.

I'm curious, Mirabell - in the US at the moment, who would you consider to be a "genuine" poet?

sorry I don't go in for waalkwriter's 'pure' literature nonsense.
I have no problem with philosophy or politics in poetry, in fact some of my favorite poets indulge in this. Say, Wheelwright or Auden.
BUt among the wave of poets post-second generation NY school there are many who, as I always thought (and still do) Carson does, use these elements, as Eric said, gratuitously, as garnish, a namedropping exercise, without the poetic or philosophical backbone to pull it off. Ron Silliman and Charkles Bernstein would be two famous culprits. I have a similar problem with the more recent poetry of Jorie Graham. I think there can be very interesting poetry that depends upon politics or theory to give it coherence, Susan Howe or Jackson MacLow would be examples of that.

 

[Refus de Sejour]

Who mentioned anything about purity? There are poets who make identity politics and linguistic/political theory (and process too, I forgot that one) integral parts of their poetics. They don't just name drop - they shape their poems formally around these concepts. Are there are poets who don't. Carson is the latter.

There is a world of difference between Carson and Bernstein/Silliman; that was exactly my point. Carson's poetry isn't theory dependent, and doesn't make the kind of political claims that the Language poets do.

If posturing is a matter of stance 1st, poetry 2nd - as your original statement suggested - then Carson simply isn't a poseur.

 

[Mirabell]

Who mentioned anything about purity? There are poets who make identity politics and linguistic/political theory (and process too, I forgot that one) integral parts of their poetics. They don't just name drop - they shape their poems formally around these concepts. Are there are poets who don't. Carson is the latter.

There is a world of difference between Carson and Bernstein/Silliman; that was exactly my point. Carson's poetry isn't theory dependent, and doesn't make the kind of political claims that the Language poets do.

If posturing is a matter of stance 1st, poetry 2nd - as your original statement suggested - then Carson simply isn't a poseur.

poseurs are name droppers. posturing is a matter of name dropping not of theory dependency

 

[Eric]

On Name-Dropping

Mirabell, you're not allowed to agree with me. It's against the rules of WLF courtesy and flamboyance. But I do welcome your support on this occasion.

I'm afraid I'm moving more and more towards Mirabell's position now that I know more about the people Carson name-drops (ploppings into the dung of poetry). There are lots of names in poems, but often (as with "Dry Salvages") it is a real place visited by the poet. When Wordsworth writes about "At Applethwaite, near Keswick" you can bet your life that the sonnet was inspired by him looking out over a real landscape. Whilst the mention of the name "Heidegger" supports my theory that Carson is desperate to communicate to the university classes that she knows a thing or two about, specifically, phenomenology. Not Existentialism, Nietzscheanism, nihilism, feminism, atheism - but Phenomenology.

And why Isaiah? Has she read the Tanakh? If so, what a clever bunny she is. She could have called her hero Old Tom Gibber:

Then Old Tom Gibber unclamped his mouth from the howl.

Old Tom Gibber let his mouth go from the teat.

Old Tom Gibber turned, Old Tom Gibber walked away.

Old Tom Gibber walked for three years naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered
to the shame of the nation.

All night you could see the Branch roaming against the sky like a soul.

Bare y'r buttocks and suck y'r teat!

Otherwise, all Carson's doing is writing a rather prosy-Witmaniac version of the outline of the story of an Old Testament prophet. The image is somewhat diffuse.

If American poets are indeed pretentious, maybe they could do with more contact with the Old Continent of Europe, where the poseurs and sincere poets mix freely. She could read... translations. Not just of things written two thousand years ago which she's translated herself, but things written in the vibrant now of Europe.

Wasn't that Ole Testament Prophet Ezra (Pound the Nazi, to you) doing a lot of name-dropping with all his Chinese ideograms which the rest of us couldn't read, in his Rantos? Isn't James Begorrah of Trieste t'rowing in a load of Finnish and Norwegian words to enhance his Winnegans Fake, so that he can shut out the plebs and sell concordances instead of indulgences?

Considering Carson is a translator herself - from Classical languages - and a Professor of CompLit, you would have thought she w?uld be more humble with regard to literatures and languages, The CompLit scene at some universities in the English-speaking world is dominated, as I see it, by a focus on comparing the literature of the Ancient World with that currently written in English, leaving contemporary European literature out in the cold. It's all a cosy tweed-jacketed fireside chat, involving the Ancients, which only differs from a century ago in that they've now let the ladies into the charmed circle- though not the Europeans.