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Plainwater: Essays and Poetry
The poetry and prose collected in Plainwater are a testament to the extraordinary imagination of Anne Carson, a writer described by Michael Ondaatje as "the most exciting poet writing in English today." Succinct and astonishingly beautiful, these pieces stretch the boundaries of language and literary form, while juxtaposing classical and modern traditions.
Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings in Plainwater dazzle us with their invention and enlighten us with their erudition.
Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings in Plainwater dazzle us with their invention and enlighten us with their erudition.
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
Anne Carson
84 books4,387 followersAnne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980 to 1987. She was a 1998 Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2000 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She has also won a Lannan Literary Award.
Carson (with background in classical languages, comparative literature, anthropology, history, and commercial art) blends ideas and themes from many fields in her writing. She frequently references, modernizes, and translates Ancient Greek literature. She has published eighteen books as of 2013, all of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation, dramatic dialogue, fiction, and non-fiction. She is an internationally acclaimed writer. Her books include Antigonick, Nox, Decreation, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry; Economy of the Unlost; Autobiography of Red, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry, and Glass, Irony and God, shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Carson is also a classics scholar, the translator of If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, and the author of Eros the Bittersweet. Her awards and honors include the Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her latest book, Red Doc>, was shortlisted for the 2013 T.S. Elliot Prize.
Carson (with background in classical languages, comparative literature, anthropology, history, and commercial art) blends ideas and themes from many fields in her writing. She frequently references, modernizes, and translates Ancient Greek literature. She has published eighteen books as of 2013, all of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation, dramatic dialogue, fiction, and non-fiction. She is an internationally acclaimed writer. Her books include Antigonick, Nox, Decreation, The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry; Economy of the Unlost; Autobiography of Red, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry, and Glass, Irony and God, shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Carson is also a classics scholar, the translator of If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, and the author of Eros the Bittersweet. Her awards and honors include the Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her latest book, Red Doc>, was shortlisted for the 2013 T.S. Elliot Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 324 reviews
June 8, 2018
When you enjoy a new-to-you author this much, you just hope you haven't made the mistake of choosing her best book to read first. And though Plainwater is a flavorful mix of essays and poetry, it really amounts to poetry, whether in traditional lines and stanzas or hidden in paragraph form. The lady has a word with ways, as they say.
The book opens modestly enough with "Mimnermos: The Brainsex Paintings," which is an interview between the author and a 7th-century B.C. poet (but of course!). The moral of the story? If you like an ancient poet, make like a ventriloquist and give him a new voice.
After this comes "Short Talks," the perfect thing for these short-attention-span times. Most of these entries are a mere paragraph long, with titles like "On Trout," "On Disappointments in Music," "On Ovid," "On Parmenides," "On Waterproofing," "On the Mona Lisa," "On Sylvia Plath," and "On Reading." Sweet and short, the shortest of the lot is "On Gertrude Stein About 9:30," which goes like so: "How curious. I had no idea! Today has ended."
Section 3, "Canicula di Anna," is full-fledged poetry--44 pages of a phenomenology conference in Perugia, Italy. If you have no idea what phenomenology is and how on earth (much less Italy) it would merit a conference, know that it is, according to both Merriam and Webster, "the study of the development of human consciousness and self-awareness as a preface to or a part of philosophy."
As they say in Canada: "Oh."
"The Life of Towns," Part 4, is similar to "Short Talks" except it is written as short poems. The beyond-curious thing about these guys is that every line in every poem starts with a capital letter and ends with a period--even when it's not a sentence. Exhibit B ("A" being busy):
"Luck Town" by Anne Carson
Digging a hole.
To bury his child alive.
So that he could buy food for his aged mother.
One day.
A man struck gold.
Once you get used to the quirky periods (that must be ignored) and to the fact that Carson has forced you to slow down and read her poems slowly, you're safe at the plate.
Finally, the book wraps up with a travelogue of sorts called "The Anthropology of Water." It's about Anne and a boyfriend doing the Simon & Garfunkel thing ("Yes, we've all gone to look for America..."). It's like snooping in a poet's diary, this section, and you not only get an idea about camping (of all things), but learn about the psychology of man and woman in close quarters (pup tents, sleeping bags, cars, etc.) and the communion one feels with nature, even under times of stress.
My favorite line in this section, running away (like the dish and spoon)? Easy. It's two lines under the heading Friday 4:00 a.m. Not swimming.: "Staring. The lake lies like a silver tongue in a black mouth."
Let me stare at that line again. If it's 4 a.m. as I do so, even better. And if I'm in a cabin right on a lake, better still. Deep inhale. Slow exhale.
Throughout all of these sections, Carson explores her fraught relationship with her father. Yep. He's another one of those strict, man-of-few-words types who bears a daughter-of-many-words and has trouble showing his love.
What is it with men who have trouble showing their love? In its way, the theme of this lovely book.
The book opens modestly enough with "Mimnermos: The Brainsex Paintings," which is an interview between the author and a 7th-century B.C. poet (but of course!). The moral of the story? If you like an ancient poet, make like a ventriloquist and give him a new voice.
After this comes "Short Talks," the perfect thing for these short-attention-span times. Most of these entries are a mere paragraph long, with titles like "On Trout," "On Disappointments in Music," "On Ovid," "On Parmenides," "On Waterproofing," "On the Mona Lisa," "On Sylvia Plath," and "On Reading." Sweet and short, the shortest of the lot is "On Gertrude Stein About 9:30," which goes like so: "How curious. I had no idea! Today has ended."
Section 3, "Canicula di Anna," is full-fledged poetry--44 pages of a phenomenology conference in Perugia, Italy. If you have no idea what phenomenology is and how on earth (much less Italy) it would merit a conference, know that it is, according to both Merriam and Webster, "the study of the development of human consciousness and self-awareness as a preface to or a part of philosophy."
As they say in Canada: "Oh."
"The Life of Towns," Part 4, is similar to "Short Talks" except it is written as short poems. The beyond-curious thing about these guys is that every line in every poem starts with a capital letter and ends with a period--even when it's not a sentence. Exhibit B ("A" being busy):
"Luck Town" by Anne Carson
Digging a hole.
To bury his child alive.
So that he could buy food for his aged mother.
One day.
A man struck gold.
Once you get used to the quirky periods (that must be ignored) and to the fact that Carson has forced you to slow down and read her poems slowly, you're safe at the plate.
Finally, the book wraps up with a travelogue of sorts called "The Anthropology of Water." It's about Anne and a boyfriend doing the Simon & Garfunkel thing ("Yes, we've all gone to look for America..."). It's like snooping in a poet's diary, this section, and you not only get an idea about camping (of all things), but learn about the psychology of man and woman in close quarters (pup tents, sleeping bags, cars, etc.) and the communion one feels with nature, even under times of stress.
My favorite line in this section, running away (like the dish and spoon)? Easy. It's two lines under the heading Friday 4:00 a.m. Not swimming.: "Staring. The lake lies like a silver tongue in a black mouth."
Let me stare at that line again. If it's 4 a.m. as I do so, even better. And if I'm in a cabin right on a lake, better still. Deep inhale. Slow exhale.
Throughout all of these sections, Carson explores her fraught relationship with her father. Yep. He's another one of those strict, man-of-few-words types who bears a daughter-of-many-words and has trouble showing his love.
What is it with men who have trouble showing their love? In its way, the theme of this lovely book.
March 4, 2021
i don’t know how to explain the experience of reading this book except to say that it left me with a ringing sense of loneliness. not the numbing sort of loneliness. just the loneliness you experience as a child. like the feeling of standing on the edge of a great big mountain, looking out over a world and landscape that you do not know and that you fear you will never truly know. you are so small and the trees are especially big, and even the dog you pass on the street is just about your size. now i’m not sure if I really felt lonely as a kid. was I aware of the fact that I was standing on the edge of a great big mountain? looking out over a world that I cannot absorb? that is just out of my grasp? did I ever once think, “wow, I am especially small in size, and the moon is just two feet wide. and the sun is too. the moon is the size of my dog, if not smaller, but one day I might grow to learn that the moon is in fact way bigger than the dog who licks my face”. I don’t know! but I can feel the childhood loneliness when I read Anne Carson. but I’m not standing at the edge of the great big mountain. I’m sitting! with my legs dangling off the side. and once again I can feel my legs loose and swinging below me, a feeling I only now get when sitting on a very tall stool. and I’m looking up at the moon while sitting on the edge of this great big mountain, and a glass of water is sitting next to me, and so is my horse, who is also just a kid
September 4, 2012
12.26.02 – Notice of Termination of Lease
(from my landlord)
Due to my financial situation, I regret to inform you that I am forced to sell the house you are living in now. This letter serves as your 30 day notice. Please move out completely by January 31, 2003.
12.31.02 – The Year of the Horse
I’m holding on to a new book. It is white like a small hand opening. Like the new year drifting its white-out over the frozen grass. The pages are stiff, each being convinced to turn over. It is learning the mechanism of its own flipping. Pressing its ear to the spine, it listens for clicks.
Across the table, Dawn declares 2003 the year of the horse. How can horses sleep standing up? I think of a precise machine fitting for a horse. A white horse in the snow, breathing out dense clouds. A spotted horse drinking from the edge of a lake. A black horse walking away in the desert. The shape of a horse is indefinite, as any body of water will tell you. You fall through and through. The year of the horse.
Is it?
01.11.03 - Interview with Anne Carson
I: Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed Ms. Carson. In your book, Plainwater, I understand you have included some fragments of Mimnermos' poetry. What is the importance of understanding these, and why did you choose to open the book with this disjunctive series?
A: Please call me Annie.
I: Alright Annie. Are you tired of these questions already?
A: I'm tired of Freud. I bet you're tired of Aphrodite. You're probably tired of me, and you haven't even gotten to the good part of the book yet.
I: Yes, but the crust is good dipped in chicken soup.
D: Motherfucker, give me some of that.
I: Dawn? Where did Annie go?
D: I don't know man. Hand it over.
I: Dude, you were Annie... I mean, you were Miss Anne Carson just ten seconds ago, I swear. Am I dreaming?
D: I'm tired of Freud. You wouldn't believe what my Queer Theory professor said today.
I: I don't want to know. I was doing an interview. I guess I'll ask you my next question: What's the function of beauty in art?
D: Well, a pretty girl is good to look at. And I guess you need that in art because art needs to be good to look at, too.
A: There's probably more wisdom in there than you think.
I: Annie? Is that you?
D: No. Hey, did you read that Plainwater book? I thought we were gonna talk about it.
I: Yeah, I just finished this section with interviews and shit.
A: Can a butterfly ever be beautiful? What the butterfly does not understand is her own reflection in the pond. She folds her wings behind her as she lands, forming each past movement in reverse. In my imagination, I am so sure that the water in Kolophon is always cold. I'd like to pull up my dress and step in, but I'm scared. I don't know why. This is always when I grow older. Perhaps this fear is related to my sister's drowning. I see her face in the water at night. Does that answer your question, Dr. Moss?
I: Who's Doctor Moss?
01.16.03 – Properties of Glass
An empty house is indefinite as a horse. It is an echo chamber, born to convince us of ourselves. As I was saying that, I was distracted. I was withdrawing into boxes that will later be unboxed. It is easy to be distracted by random objects on the walls. The bedside table spilling over with books and coffee mugs.
A pilgrimage is a disguise for a spiritual journey to find the self. The destination is not as important as the physical act of moving through space. Waking up in a lake after a dream of drought.
But this is no pilgrimage. No. Not like that at all. This is not about moving through spaces. It is about walls and windows. How many windows do I need? When I was 12, I heard rumors that there was a house being built entirely of glass. Is that a house without walls or a house without windows? I wanted so much to live there, but I didn’t know why.
How can a horse sleep standing up? It is its own house.
01.18.03 - Theory of Adjectives
How many degrees of separation between Pina Bausch and this cup of tea? Anne takes a sip from it. She's fixed to the pages curled in her left hand. Outside, the smell of burnt garbage tumbles upwards. It's late August, and the mockingbirds are swooping down like wild fire at your ear. In every story, something always represents love. Or someone.
Anne turns another page. This one's riddled with disease, slow infinitives. Prepositional phrases. In a month, the streets will freeze. It takes a dead body 23 minutes to reach room temperature. Patches of ice form continents. Her apartment's small. So small, pacing becomes necessary. There are pictures of Ophelia on the wall next to polaroids of her mother in a blue scarf. Poems scattered on her floor like seed. Buddha says I, too, use concepts, but I am not fooled thereby. Anne writes a sentence in the margin that resembles a woman whose back has given out.
01.19.03 - Exegesis
Is that all we must go on? I can tell you that there is a curiosity in the mosquito's stirring, the phenomenologists counter-stirring. Between these, an ancient dialectic, perhaps? Some air thrown out between two soft sheets? A city inside a stone? The overheard words: I'm not sure I overheard them anymore. The first time I met Anna, she was caught between these gravities. One was painting her with vermillion, the scorpion's scald. The other was an overheard conversation, a long distance call, her father's death. She showed me the blue veins mapping both her arms. As if scars.
I can tell you how to keep the dogs out, their barking barking. But not what the barking means. What I'm trying to say is. The scars, let's go back to the scars. I mean, veins. Like frescoes, graffiti on the tombs of the Museo Archeologico. Powdered lead, cypress resin, a careful science. I mean, silence. Carson's use of white space, adjectives, no. Her use of. Invention? No, her freedom from convention. No.
The first time I met Anna, she was furiously dancing. I don't remember much else. Maybe she showed me her arms, maybe not. Maybe I overheard murderer. Heidegger? A man was sitting next to me, covered in a shawl. No, a Yankees cap. When he reached for his drink, I saw on his fingers the ground up leaves, black manganate, tint of flesh.
01.21.03 - Interview with Jimmy Lo
A: Thanks for agreeing to interview with me Mr. Lo. About your review of my book...
J: Yes. Umm.. Well, that's a touchy subject, isn't it? Maybe you shouldn't have been the one doing this interview. I mean, I'm still in the middle of writing it, and there's that whole ethical thing...
A: You think I'm going to influence your opinion of my book?
J: Well, if we start talking more often, you know, go out on a few dates and stuff, things could get out of hand. I need to remain objective about this.
A: Our relationship is strictly professional.
J: Yes, yes I'll try.
A: Tell me about Dawn.
J: Dawn?
A: Yes, this person was not in my book. Yet you've confused her with me during the second section of your review.
J: She's not? I thought she... Oh, well maybe I just made her up.
A: You're a real asshole, you know?
J: Sorry.
01.22.03
Apt. J10 Ansley Forest, Monroe Dr.
Patricia, 21, has two dogs, frequent guests, and smokes indoors in winter. I know this, but I'm here anyway. She opens the door, smiling. She works at a pet care place down the street. Her boyfriend is on the couch. Nice location, I say. The room is bare. Take a seat. The TV sits on a stack of Yellow Pages. One of the dogs is a baby pit bull. My dad used to own a pit bull, I say. We gave him away cause he got too aggressive. The kitchen's loaded with unwashed dishes. Her boyfriend asks if I want to smoke pot. We watch commercials. So, what do you do? I work for a design firm. I do web pages. Stains on the carpet. You don't go to school? I graduated. From Tech. Computer Science. Oh, cool, that's what he's doing too. Bauder College. Jeopardy on TV. One of the dogs really likes me. I think her name is Lucy. I better go. I'll let you know soon. OK, Aufwiedersehen. You know German? Yeah, we lived in Germany for a while. Hey, do you know a German word that sounds like "function lust". It means something like "joy in doing"...
01.23.03
453 Curran Street
A student lives here. Her room smells of perfume and has blue walls (imagine sleeping in a small red boat in the center of a lake). Windows hang on the wall like upside down roses. The landlord walks beside me. He talks about central heat and air. The ceiling is warped where a brown stain shows through. That was from a leak, he says. but we fixed it.
Imagine sleeping in a boat while the lake drains into a red bucket.
01.25.03 - Funktionslust
Sometimes I go because of the voice. 1 bedroom. Washer/dryer. Sometimes I draw out the person before we even meet. It doesn't matter who they are. What they do. I enjoy passing through. Monte del Gozo. Another exit off the highway, another town with a strange name. I look at their pictures. Try to guess what led up to each photo... the wife in her swimming cap, the sister standing out on the dock. I read the titles of their books. Wuthering Heights. The Waves. Breathe the potpourri in their bathrooms. Today, while looking out a bedroom window saying "Nice view", I wondered about the view from her room. I still can't picture it clearly. Where exactly, the window? I thought next to her pictures of Ophelia, but now I'm not so sure. What angle does the sun slant through the blinds at 10am?
Continued in the comments section...
(from my landlord)
Due to my financial situation, I regret to inform you that I am forced to sell the house you are living in now. This letter serves as your 30 day notice. Please move out completely by January 31, 2003.
12.31.02 – The Year of the Horse
I’m holding on to a new book. It is white like a small hand opening. Like the new year drifting its white-out over the frozen grass. The pages are stiff, each being convinced to turn over. It is learning the mechanism of its own flipping. Pressing its ear to the spine, it listens for clicks.
Across the table, Dawn declares 2003 the year of the horse. How can horses sleep standing up? I think of a precise machine fitting for a horse. A white horse in the snow, breathing out dense clouds. A spotted horse drinking from the edge of a lake. A black horse walking away in the desert. The shape of a horse is indefinite, as any body of water will tell you. You fall through and through. The year of the horse.
Is it?
01.11.03 - Interview with Anne Carson
I: Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed Ms. Carson. In your book, Plainwater, I understand you have included some fragments of Mimnermos' poetry. What is the importance of understanding these, and why did you choose to open the book with this disjunctive series?
A: Please call me Annie.
I: Alright Annie. Are you tired of these questions already?
A: I'm tired of Freud. I bet you're tired of Aphrodite. You're probably tired of me, and you haven't even gotten to the good part of the book yet.
I: Yes, but the crust is good dipped in chicken soup.
D: Motherfucker, give me some of that.
I: Dawn? Where did Annie go?
D: I don't know man. Hand it over.
I: Dude, you were Annie... I mean, you were Miss Anne Carson just ten seconds ago, I swear. Am I dreaming?
D: I'm tired of Freud. You wouldn't believe what my Queer Theory professor said today.
I: I don't want to know. I was doing an interview. I guess I'll ask you my next question: What's the function of beauty in art?
D: Well, a pretty girl is good to look at. And I guess you need that in art because art needs to be good to look at, too.
A: There's probably more wisdom in there than you think.
I: Annie? Is that you?
D: No. Hey, did you read that Plainwater book? I thought we were gonna talk about it.
I: Yeah, I just finished this section with interviews and shit.
A: Can a butterfly ever be beautiful? What the butterfly does not understand is her own reflection in the pond. She folds her wings behind her as she lands, forming each past movement in reverse. In my imagination, I am so sure that the water in Kolophon is always cold. I'd like to pull up my dress and step in, but I'm scared. I don't know why. This is always when I grow older. Perhaps this fear is related to my sister's drowning. I see her face in the water at night. Does that answer your question, Dr. Moss?
I: Who's Doctor Moss?
01.16.03 – Properties of Glass
An empty house is indefinite as a horse. It is an echo chamber, born to convince us of ourselves. As I was saying that, I was distracted. I was withdrawing into boxes that will later be unboxed. It is easy to be distracted by random objects on the walls. The bedside table spilling over with books and coffee mugs.
A pilgrimage is a disguise for a spiritual journey to find the self. The destination is not as important as the physical act of moving through space. Waking up in a lake after a dream of drought.
But this is no pilgrimage. No. Not like that at all. This is not about moving through spaces. It is about walls and windows. How many windows do I need? When I was 12, I heard rumors that there was a house being built entirely of glass. Is that a house without walls or a house without windows? I wanted so much to live there, but I didn’t know why.
How can a horse sleep standing up? It is its own house.
01.18.03 - Theory of Adjectives
How many degrees of separation between Pina Bausch and this cup of tea? Anne takes a sip from it. She's fixed to the pages curled in her left hand. Outside, the smell of burnt garbage tumbles upwards. It's late August, and the mockingbirds are swooping down like wild fire at your ear. In every story, something always represents love. Or someone.
Anne turns another page. This one's riddled with disease, slow infinitives. Prepositional phrases. In a month, the streets will freeze. It takes a dead body 23 minutes to reach room temperature. Patches of ice form continents. Her apartment's small. So small, pacing becomes necessary. There are pictures of Ophelia on the wall next to polaroids of her mother in a blue scarf. Poems scattered on her floor like seed. Buddha says I, too, use concepts, but I am not fooled thereby. Anne writes a sentence in the margin that resembles a woman whose back has given out.
01.19.03 - Exegesis
Is that all we must go on? I can tell you that there is a curiosity in the mosquito's stirring, the phenomenologists counter-stirring. Between these, an ancient dialectic, perhaps? Some air thrown out between two soft sheets? A city inside a stone? The overheard words: I'm not sure I overheard them anymore. The first time I met Anna, she was caught between these gravities. One was painting her with vermillion, the scorpion's scald. The other was an overheard conversation, a long distance call, her father's death. She showed me the blue veins mapping both her arms. As if scars.
I can tell you how to keep the dogs out, their barking barking. But not what the barking means. What I'm trying to say is. The scars, let's go back to the scars. I mean, veins. Like frescoes, graffiti on the tombs of the Museo Archeologico. Powdered lead, cypress resin, a careful science. I mean, silence. Carson's use of white space, adjectives, no. Her use of. Invention? No, her freedom from convention. No.
The first time I met Anna, she was furiously dancing. I don't remember much else. Maybe she showed me her arms, maybe not. Maybe I overheard murderer. Heidegger? A man was sitting next to me, covered in a shawl. No, a Yankees cap. When he reached for his drink, I saw on his fingers the ground up leaves, black manganate, tint of flesh.
01.21.03 - Interview with Jimmy Lo
A: Thanks for agreeing to interview with me Mr. Lo. About your review of my book...
J: Yes. Umm.. Well, that's a touchy subject, isn't it? Maybe you shouldn't have been the one doing this interview. I mean, I'm still in the middle of writing it, and there's that whole ethical thing...
A: You think I'm going to influence your opinion of my book?
J: Well, if we start talking more often, you know, go out on a few dates and stuff, things could get out of hand. I need to remain objective about this.
A: Our relationship is strictly professional.
J: Yes, yes I'll try.
A: Tell me about Dawn.
J: Dawn?
A: Yes, this person was not in my book. Yet you've confused her with me during the second section of your review.
J: She's not? I thought she... Oh, well maybe I just made her up.
A: You're a real asshole, you know?
J: Sorry.
01.22.03
Apt. J10 Ansley Forest, Monroe Dr.
Patricia, 21, has two dogs, frequent guests, and smokes indoors in winter. I know this, but I'm here anyway. She opens the door, smiling. She works at a pet care place down the street. Her boyfriend is on the couch. Nice location, I say. The room is bare. Take a seat. The TV sits on a stack of Yellow Pages. One of the dogs is a baby pit bull. My dad used to own a pit bull, I say. We gave him away cause he got too aggressive. The kitchen's loaded with unwashed dishes. Her boyfriend asks if I want to smoke pot. We watch commercials. So, what do you do? I work for a design firm. I do web pages. Stains on the carpet. You don't go to school? I graduated. From Tech. Computer Science. Oh, cool, that's what he's doing too. Bauder College. Jeopardy on TV. One of the dogs really likes me. I think her name is Lucy. I better go. I'll let you know soon. OK, Aufwiedersehen. You know German? Yeah, we lived in Germany for a while. Hey, do you know a German word that sounds like "function lust". It means something like "joy in doing"...
01.23.03
453 Curran Street
A student lives here. Her room smells of perfume and has blue walls (imagine sleeping in a small red boat in the center of a lake). Windows hang on the wall like upside down roses. The landlord walks beside me. He talks about central heat and air. The ceiling is warped where a brown stain shows through. That was from a leak, he says. but we fixed it.
Imagine sleeping in a boat while the lake drains into a red bucket.
01.25.03 - Funktionslust
Sometimes I go because of the voice. 1 bedroom. Washer/dryer. Sometimes I draw out the person before we even meet. It doesn't matter who they are. What they do. I enjoy passing through. Monte del Gozo. Another exit off the highway, another town with a strange name. I look at their pictures. Try to guess what led up to each photo... the wife in her swimming cap, the sister standing out on the dock. I read the titles of their books. Wuthering Heights. The Waves. Breathe the potpourri in their bathrooms. Today, while looking out a bedroom window saying "Nice view", I wondered about the view from her room. I still can't picture it clearly. Where exactly, the window? I thought next to her pictures of Ophelia, but now I'm not so sure. What angle does the sun slant through the blinds at 10am?
Continued in the comments section...
December 3, 2007
i think i had to read "autobiography of red" and "beauty of the husband" to get to trust her enough to go through these shorter, sharper pieces, but this is my favorite anne carson so far. by "trust her," i mean understand that she's lying most of the time, but it's for my own good. i would love to learn to move through truth towards beauty the way she does. unfortunately i'm pretty much convinced that it's not something you can learn.
February 22, 2015
Anne Carson puts together several different prose and poetry styles all together to create something beautiful and amazing. It took me a while to adapt to poetry again after a bit of a hiatus, but Plainwater is so good I've started back into a poetry binge of proportions not seen in recent years. It's amazing and lovely and everyone should go read it.
June 5, 2007
My first encounter with Carson--completely life-changing.
May 10, 2016
This book is one big old hunk of gorgeous.
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October 19, 2022she is such a powerful, such a crazy and such a wise woman who asks undeniable questions:
what unaccountable longings and hidden fears are swimming on fire in you?
<3
what unaccountable longings and hidden fears are swimming on fire in you?
<3
April 16, 2020
Carson + Homer-adjacent lyric poets = unwilting glory. I adore her translations of Mimnermos and am immoderately grateful for her structural analyses. Makes my heart dizzy! I think I don't love philosophy enough to always truly understand her other poetry, but I sure did enjoy having it in my brain. I always like the way she writes about love, it leaves me with a residue of head-sadness and heart-fear. Her writing always feels multimedia. Not the most exceptional phrase in the book but one that I keep remembering: "I was a young, strong, stingy person of no particular gender - all traits advantageous to the pilgrim." I like how her gender isn't consistent between autobiographical pieces. I believe she defines womanhood as the struggle to please men in the hope of no longer living in terror of them. As soon as lockdown ends I'm taking a 47 day backpacking trip with only socks, pencils, and three empty notebooks. I'll stick flowers in my pockets every day until they're overflowing with dried leaves. Well enlightenment is useless but "since my house burned down / I now own / a better view / of the rising moon". Carson didn't write that, she quoted it, but it's excellent. I'm going to finish my dissertation one summer while on a transnational road trip with someone also finishing a dissertation, someone who I love and will always live far away from me. Everything Carson writes is a conversation, explicit or implicit. She becomes entangled! That is why I love her, because of the entanglings.
My only but constant criticism is that she never uses the Oxford comma and it drives me bonkers, always just THIS close to perfection.
My only but constant criticism is that she never uses the Oxford comma and it drives me bonkers, always just THIS close to perfection.
July 24, 2019
Infinite stars light this dim scar of a path we travel. All of us repeat ourselves. Anne Carson uses the word 'ghostily' twice in this book. She talks twice about how you can 'feel the difference run down the back of your skull like cold water.' In her imagined interviews with Mimnermos she does not use ending punctuation. Her lack of question marks thrilled me. She mentions Kafka a lot. We're all threading our way along the scar and the stars are exploding overhead, raining down silver upon our heads. I read most of this book outside and never saw a single star. But it was the middle of the day. And I was surrounded by water. There is a lot of water in this book. There is a lot of water on the earth. And in our bodies. And yet, as Carson says, 'we think we live by keeping water caught in the trap of the heart.' A dry heart terrifies us. We think of the heart as an oasis in the middle of our deserted bodies. But it might not be that, not for all of us, at least. Anne Carson traces the scar, prods at the heart, wrings it for its water, drags it dripping across the pages. It's hers to do this with, but it could just as easily be any of ours.
July 20, 2008
Anne Carson is the Arachne of contemporary poets. A professor of classics and comparative literature at Michigan, Carson has an eight-legged brain that comfortably weaves sixth-century Greek lyric poetry, Renaissance painting, ancient Chinese wisdom literature, Kafka, and the confusion of her (writerly persona's) own love affairs. It is tempting to read the sections of this collection as separate entities. Indeed, the thematic and stylistic differences seem to encourage episodic reading. But such sporadic engagement runs counter to the flow of the titular plainwater. Carson's gift brings together the disparate and disjunctive as she sets down a variegated set of rocks in the same, illuminating stream.
January 14, 2012
Loved it. I'm not going to pretend I have a complete grasp on the complexities of this collection yet (I feel like I need to spend years studying history, anthropology, mythology, language) but Anne Carson writes beautifully. Creative, clean. Her words find hollows in me and echo. My copy is littered with post its to mark certain lines, passages. Not a review, but a more personal (?) take here.
December 3, 2017
… It’s been 15 days since I finished this book and yet I don’t have the words to express how I feel towards this. The Anthropology of Water was extraordinary. The Brainsex Paintings were a great reminder of the time I used to study ancient Greek (and I might pick up the original Greek ones and perhaps comeback to Carson’s essay once more, hence why I’ll put this in my to-re-read list).
But seriously, the Anthropology of Water was even more than extraordinary.
But seriously, the Anthropology of Water was even more than extraordinary.
June 26, 2007
I first found "Kinds of Water", included in this collection, several years before the book appeared and I read it again and again for a decade. It might be the single biggest influence on my writing.
September 24, 2024
Simplemente increíble, incluso siendo relectura. He leído otras cosas más recientes de Carson y nada me ha marcado más que los cinco libros reunidos acá. Cada texto me recuerda cómo de importante fue para mí leerlo por primera vez, hace ya cinco años.
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January 30, 2022emerging from anne carson's writing always feels like stepping out of a fog. god fucking knows if i'll ever be able to articulately review something of hers, but her brain is unreal
no rating because i definitely need to sit with and revisit parts of this
no rating because i definitely need to sit with and revisit parts of this
February 8, 2024
one must read an anne carson book from time to time to remember that magic exists and that humans can bend it with words. i was talking to my best friend about her and i said that when i read my first book by her (it was autobiography of red) i felt like i had been waiting all my life for someone to write a book like that. this is how most of her writing makes me feel: like no one has ever found this secret crevice in language before her. of course i dont feel like this all the time. i especially loved the mimnermos interview (brilliant, both in the intelligent sense and in the luminous sense) and the part about the camino de santiago, but some other bits about her ex's kinks were almost too heterosexual for me. its okay though, because her writing washes through you like a thin stream of water. her poems have a cool voice. it sounds like stone, distant, matter-of-fact though gentle. it reminds me of mitski's music sometimes. just perfect and pearly as always!!!
September 17, 2022
Bueno, fue más o menos hace un año, nos hicimos amantes y lo único que quería era que cesara la atracción. Atracción atracción atracción. Me atraían los brazos. Me atraían los ojos. Me atraían los pulmones. Me atraía el sudor en los muslos. Me atraía de noche, me atraía todo el día, atrayéndome sin dejarme caer, sin quemar, sin importar. ¿Qué importa la atracción? «Es sólo amor», solía decir, riéndose, abriéndome la ropa. Llamaba a nuestros cuerpos «este lujo». «Ningún lujo es eterno», le respondía yo, y él replicaba «eso está bien, no tenemos mucho tiempo». El amor le hacía tan feliz que empecé a llamarle el emperador de China. Había lugares donde el lujo disminuía, donde yo esperaba. Vi algo abrirse en un destello y luego lo perdí.
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June 29, 2023i love anne bc her books have a way (cheesy) of coming to me at the perfect moment …. very special to read this one while i was also traveling and having my own pilgrimage of sorts (+ longest i’ve spent with a book in a while). in a way … youthful? and descent from typical anne godhood, very human and close (before my personal poetry is a failure i don’t want to be a person i want to be unbearable) which was very special to read. summer version of the glass essay. all in all i love u anne. boo me being earnest.
January 21, 2024
One day I wish to be smart enough to understand everything anne carson wants to convey in her writing
4,5⭐️
4,5⭐️
April 17, 2023
When I reached the last page, I literally cried out loud "Nooo!!!" ('twas reading on my kindle, so I didn't see it coming). There are five parts of this collection. Each is a very strange world of its own. Each felt like its own landscape, and while all were desolate and full of yearning, they are significantly different, like distinct cultures or lands. The premises of my favorite parts were: (1) The speaker of a poem is on the journey of a Christian pilgrimage, where she meets a man, with whom erotic contact is beyond question, (2) The speaker of a poem is on a cross-country road trip with a man whose background is doing a PhD in cultural anthropology, and whose speciality is ancient China, and (3) The poem is third-person narration of a man whose one and only love, which consumes his life, is swimming in a nearby lake.
A theme across these is yearning for beauty in romantic/sexual desire. Either that cannot be had, due to external circumstances or personal choice. Or it seems to be achieved, but when the conditions are in place, the beauty is tarnished by reality. When these conditions are lacking, the imagination is frantic and wild, and beauty may arise from that, but it is painful, since every positive extension of the imagination is simultaneously the lacking of that which is imagined from reality. This is quite a mood. It is a mood that I itch to sit inside, when it is found inside the realm of fiction/art. Most people experience this in real life, and to experience it in fiction, as the main atmosphere or mood of the entire fictional world, is interesting to think about. It is bittersweet in real life, and in fiction, the bitterness is eliminated; we only have to imagine the bitterness, which is not actual bitterness.
Here are two passages from those which I marked.
"King Oedipus may have had an eye too many, said Holderlin and kept climbing. Above the tree line is as blank as the inside of a wrist. Rock stays. Names stay. Names fell on him, hissing."
"Rain continues. The far hills are gun-colored with ancient mist floating whitely before them. Chilly and concentrating hard the swimmer moves along just under the surface of the water, watching each drop hit the surface and bounce. Ping. Water on water. He is wondering how it would feel to be a voice in a medieval motet, not a person singing but a voice itself, all the liquors raining and unraining around it. Ping. Or to be a cold willow girl in the ancient hermit’s embrace. High above him at the top of the sky, blood clouds are gathering like a wound behind flesh."
As a whole, this writing is accessible, but nevertheless is very well written, as how good poetry is, and unlike how much popular poetry is. I want to read all of Carson's work now, and if anyone has recommendations of writing that is like hers, I'd welcome that.
A theme across these is yearning for beauty in romantic/sexual desire. Either that cannot be had, due to external circumstances or personal choice. Or it seems to be achieved, but when the conditions are in place, the beauty is tarnished by reality. When these conditions are lacking, the imagination is frantic and wild, and beauty may arise from that, but it is painful, since every positive extension of the imagination is simultaneously the lacking of that which is imagined from reality. This is quite a mood. It is a mood that I itch to sit inside, when it is found inside the realm of fiction/art. Most people experience this in real life, and to experience it in fiction, as the main atmosphere or mood of the entire fictional world, is interesting to think about. It is bittersweet in real life, and in fiction, the bitterness is eliminated; we only have to imagine the bitterness, which is not actual bitterness.
Here are two passages from those which I marked.
"King Oedipus may have had an eye too many, said Holderlin and kept climbing. Above the tree line is as blank as the inside of a wrist. Rock stays. Names stay. Names fell on him, hissing."
"Rain continues. The far hills are gun-colored with ancient mist floating whitely before them. Chilly and concentrating hard the swimmer moves along just under the surface of the water, watching each drop hit the surface and bounce. Ping. Water on water. He is wondering how it would feel to be a voice in a medieval motet, not a person singing but a voice itself, all the liquors raining and unraining around it. Ping. Or to be a cold willow girl in the ancient hermit’s embrace. High above him at the top of the sky, blood clouds are gathering like a wound behind flesh."
As a whole, this writing is accessible, but nevertheless is very well written, as how good poetry is, and unlike how much popular poetry is. I want to read all of Carson's work now, and if anyone has recommendations of writing that is like hers, I'd welcome that.
December 19, 2010
I really did not enjoy this book as a whole. A few parts I did enjoy but they were sparse. The contents are a varied lot to say the least. Even the last part "The Anthropology of Water," which is over half of the book consists of 7 different, highly varied, pieces.
The piece I enjoyed the most was "Kinds of Water: An Essay on the Road to Compostela" from "The Anthropology of Water." It is not an essay but a series of journal entries by someone on the pilgrimage to Compostela and has a lot of interesting thoughts on pilgrims.
"Pilgrims were people who figured things out as they walked. On the road you can think forward, you can think back, you can make a list to remember to tell those at home."
"Pilgrims were people who took a surprisingly long time to cross the head of a pin."
"Pilgrims were people who carried little. They carried it balanced on their heart."
But my definite favorite due to its resonance for my own life is: "It is an open secret among pilgrims and other theoreticians of this traveling life that you become addicted to the horizon."
I think Miss E would really like this section (read pp. 117-187).
The piece I enjoyed the most was "Kinds of Water: An Essay on the Road to Compostela" from "The Anthropology of Water." It is not an essay but a series of journal entries by someone on the pilgrimage to Compostela and has a lot of interesting thoughts on pilgrims.
"Pilgrims were people who figured things out as they walked. On the road you can think forward, you can think back, you can make a list to remember to tell those at home."
"Pilgrims were people who took a surprisingly long time to cross the head of a pin."
"Pilgrims were people who carried little. They carried it balanced on their heart."
But my definite favorite due to its resonance for my own life is: "It is an open secret among pilgrims and other theoreticians of this traveling life that you become addicted to the horizon."
I think Miss E would really like this section (read pp. 117-187).
January 23, 2023
As always, it's an absolute pleasure reading Anne Carson.
The queen of one-liners in literature ("A cigarette / permits a natural attitude." "Love is, as you know, a harrowing event.") With a unique ability to blend romance and tragedy together in one scene.
The experience of reading Plainwater is like going on a long journey. Although by page numbers the book is not very long, the dense content leaves you transformed by the end. One of the sections, "The Anthropology of Water", in fact contains two stories about journeys (one a pilgrimage; one a camping trip among lovers who are destined not-to-be). You'll laugh (though few could make a phenomenology conference a humorous affair) and you'll cry (we all know loss).
Words cannot do justice to how much I adore this book. I will without doubt be returning to it for the rest of my life like I do with so many of Carson's other books.
The queen of one-liners in literature ("A cigarette / permits a natural attitude." "Love is, as you know, a harrowing event.") With a unique ability to blend romance and tragedy together in one scene.
The experience of reading Plainwater is like going on a long journey. Although by page numbers the book is not very long, the dense content leaves you transformed by the end. One of the sections, "The Anthropology of Water", in fact contains two stories about journeys (one a pilgrimage; one a camping trip among lovers who are destined not-to-be). You'll laugh (though few could make a phenomenology conference a humorous affair) and you'll cry (we all know loss).
Words cannot do justice to how much I adore this book. I will without doubt be returning to it for the rest of my life like I do with so many of Carson's other books.
September 15, 2010
Classic and Capital. In the sense that it's the one that I read first. It's also the one I taught my students and the one they came in to talk about and they write like and the one that we were all reading when my cat died. That passage about Anna. And also the one with the blood oranges. What a comfort an essay is. Who would have known. Also it is the one I bought god so so long ago and it is ruined because I've read it that many times and others have also gotten their hands on it and I found a first edition at the library sale and it's great it's okay, it sort of stands in.
December 22, 2018
these poems felt much too heady, full of philosphy - I prefer viseral poetry that makes me feel
July 3, 2020
“we live by waters breaking out of the heart.”
i really liked some parts, but, as a whole, i didn't enjoy it as much as i thought i would.
i really liked some parts, but, as a whole, i didn't enjoy it as much as i thought i would.
August 3, 2022
beautiful anne!! off to cry for a week ❤️ thank u so much kate xxxxxxxx
July 4, 2024
Well, I loved this.
I set out to read it after being intrigued by Autobiography of Red, which while not 100% convincing was so unique and so strange that I wanted a point of comparison in Carson’s body of work.
The same unique tactics and topics recur: rewriting Ancient Greek poets, mixing up timelines and levels of reality - in something I would call classical magic realism maybe? The wonderful, expansive, lustrous writing. The mastery describing the intricacies of relationships.
Kinds of Water especially hit home for me. I have never read such an accurate description of a certain kind of dysfunctional romantic relationship, in a light-handed yet devastatingly sharp way. If I had to rate that part of the book alone, it would be a 5 stars, but other bits were not on par.
I guess I have to read yet another of her books now.
I set out to read it after being intrigued by Autobiography of Red, which while not 100% convincing was so unique and so strange that I wanted a point of comparison in Carson’s body of work.
The same unique tactics and topics recur: rewriting Ancient Greek poets, mixing up timelines and levels of reality - in something I would call classical magic realism maybe? The wonderful, expansive, lustrous writing. The mastery describing the intricacies of relationships.
Kinds of Water especially hit home for me. I have never read such an accurate description of a certain kind of dysfunctional romantic relationship, in a light-handed yet devastatingly sharp way. If I had to rate that part of the book alone, it would be a 5 stars, but other bits were not on par.
I guess I have to read yet another of her books now.
October 18, 2018
I have to confess, Carson almost lost me with this one. Or at least she came as close to losing me as she has thus far, because parts one and two (which we’ll discuss) were both incredible, and this books last hundred fifty pages are probably the most moving and most original stretch of Anne Carson that I’ve ever read. None of these, let me assure you, are the problem. The problem is “Canicula di Anna,” sits on the same poetic-scholarly faultline as Autobiography of Red. Obviously, Red is a wonderful book, but Red is infused with a lyricism that I find just plain missing here. “Canicula” is too laden with biography and backstory, and for me, the language just doesn’t have that same ring to it. It reads like an essay, and a rather dry essay at that, with funny line breaks. Which, I mean, this is the risk Anne Carson always ran, and it’s a risk that often pays off for her. Carson is a high roller when it comes to formal gambits, and mostly, she reaps the rewards of this. Not so much here.
Ah well. Nobody’s body of work is entirely faultless, you know? And I’d like to emphasize that this solid four-star, in places five-star, work is the weakest Carson book I’ve read thus far. That speaks volumes about how good she is. The rest of this work takes Carson to new territory, which I think we all expect by now. Parts two and four, respectively an essay suite entitled “Small Talks” and a poem cycle called “The Life of Towns,” function as iridescent bursts of consciousness, both gorgeously written, both sharp in their insights. The latter will inevitably invite comparisons to Calvino, but Carson’s sharp and unsentimental imagery (we get a “tinkle of the moon” in the mix) stakes out its own territory.
Part one, “Mimnermos: the Brainsex Paintings,” is probably Carson as she’s best-known to the public. The classical scholar in her comes all the way out, presenting fragments, whether authentic or fabricated, of the ancient Greek poet Mimnermos. Things really get interesting when she dredges the persona up for an interview. It’s got as much to say about the topics of memory, desire, and the pain we all try to keep hidden as The Autobiography of Red, and as an added bonus, it throws in about the near-constant war between creation and creator, persona and public. But it’s more than poetry about poetry, it’s how we as humans exist within this world we must exist in. It is, in short, the sort of daring and original genre-bending work I love to read.
Now, about “The Anthropology of Water,” which closes things off. This extended piece is in turn anchored by two longer essays, “Kinds of Water” and “Just for a Thrill,” both of which recreate two different - yet, of course, quite similar - westward trips, which pair the speaker with two separate men, or maybe one man. The former leverages the imagery of devotion and sainthood, while the latter is a swirl of classic Western imagery, R&B lyrics, a crumbling relationship, and the nature of wisdom. All angles through which Carson’s speaker interrogates and dialogues with a perhaps- (ok, definitely-) doomed romance. It’s the sort of masterpiece only Carson could’ve written. She sets the scene with a little Greek myth (this is what happened to the daughter who didn’t kill her suitor, long story short), then paints a vivid and truly wrenching family scene, and closes off with another.
What it all adds up to, as far as I can tell, is how this all sticks around, what and why people internalize. The men are granted heavy titles - “My Cid,” “The Emperor” - but the deeper I got into the poem, the more ironic these titles seemed, these men with their petty need for control and their refusals to listen constantly undermining and betraying them, while also harming those around him. As with the father in the second part, as with the brother in the fourth. It’s a wonderful feminist text, and it also gets at this notion of centers not holding, the myths of the West and the pilgrims and the virtuous father and the good Emperor and the heroic El Cid not quite standing up to the scrutiny presented them. Which in a sense is Carson’s project, here’s the front of the myth and here’s how it actually goes down… it’s no accident that one of her best books is called Men in the Off Hours.
Plus, the aesthetics are just wonderful. Carson calls in these choruses about pilgrims throughout “Kinds of Water” and sprinkles in lines from classic blues and jazz singers (Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, and Etta James are among the greats inattendance) all over “Just for a Thrill.” I find they have a particularly powerful double-effect in the latter, creating a sense of physicality and temporality while also providing a framework for the events themselves. Each asks a question of the scene, and few are quite as straightforward as they appear. Meanwhile, the pilgrim bits, which close off many of “Kinds of Water’s” fragments, provide all sorts of shading to what we’ve read, in many cases adding an extra layer or two to the fragment.
I guess what I’m saying is that an incredible amount of craft went into this piece, a lot of care, layers upon layers, allusions upon allusions. The end result is downright transformative, a staggering testament to what literature and only literature can do, the interior and exterior worlds it can create and complicate. This is a book I’m already itching to reread. Even with the dud straight in the middle, this book still makes quite the landing indeed.
Ah well. Nobody’s body of work is entirely faultless, you know? And I’d like to emphasize that this solid four-star, in places five-star, work is the weakest Carson book I’ve read thus far. That speaks volumes about how good she is. The rest of this work takes Carson to new territory, which I think we all expect by now. Parts two and four, respectively an essay suite entitled “Small Talks” and a poem cycle called “The Life of Towns,” function as iridescent bursts of consciousness, both gorgeously written, both sharp in their insights. The latter will inevitably invite comparisons to Calvino, but Carson’s sharp and unsentimental imagery (we get a “tinkle of the moon” in the mix) stakes out its own territory.
Part one, “Mimnermos: the Brainsex Paintings,” is probably Carson as she’s best-known to the public. The classical scholar in her comes all the way out, presenting fragments, whether authentic or fabricated, of the ancient Greek poet Mimnermos. Things really get interesting when she dredges the persona up for an interview. It’s got as much to say about the topics of memory, desire, and the pain we all try to keep hidden as The Autobiography of Red, and as an added bonus, it throws in about the near-constant war between creation and creator, persona and public. But it’s more than poetry about poetry, it’s how we as humans exist within this world we must exist in. It is, in short, the sort of daring and original genre-bending work I love to read.
Now, about “The Anthropology of Water,” which closes things off. This extended piece is in turn anchored by two longer essays, “Kinds of Water” and “Just for a Thrill,” both of which recreate two different - yet, of course, quite similar - westward trips, which pair the speaker with two separate men, or maybe one man. The former leverages the imagery of devotion and sainthood, while the latter is a swirl of classic Western imagery, R&B lyrics, a crumbling relationship, and the nature of wisdom. All angles through which Carson’s speaker interrogates and dialogues with a perhaps- (ok, definitely-) doomed romance. It’s the sort of masterpiece only Carson could’ve written. She sets the scene with a little Greek myth (this is what happened to the daughter who didn’t kill her suitor, long story short), then paints a vivid and truly wrenching family scene, and closes off with another.
What it all adds up to, as far as I can tell, is how this all sticks around, what and why people internalize. The men are granted heavy titles - “My Cid,” “The Emperor” - but the deeper I got into the poem, the more ironic these titles seemed, these men with their petty need for control and their refusals to listen constantly undermining and betraying them, while also harming those around him. As with the father in the second part, as with the brother in the fourth. It’s a wonderful feminist text, and it also gets at this notion of centers not holding, the myths of the West and the pilgrims and the virtuous father and the good Emperor and the heroic El Cid not quite standing up to the scrutiny presented them. Which in a sense is Carson’s project, here’s the front of the myth and here’s how it actually goes down… it’s no accident that one of her best books is called Men in the Off Hours.
Plus, the aesthetics are just wonderful. Carson calls in these choruses about pilgrims throughout “Kinds of Water” and sprinkles in lines from classic blues and jazz singers (Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, and Etta James are among the greats inattendance) all over “Just for a Thrill.” I find they have a particularly powerful double-effect in the latter, creating a sense of physicality and temporality while also providing a framework for the events themselves. Each asks a question of the scene, and few are quite as straightforward as they appear. Meanwhile, the pilgrim bits, which close off many of “Kinds of Water’s” fragments, provide all sorts of shading to what we’ve read, in many cases adding an extra layer or two to the fragment.
I guess what I’m saying is that an incredible amount of craft went into this piece, a lot of care, layers upon layers, allusions upon allusions. The end result is downright transformative, a staggering testament to what literature and only literature can do, the interior and exterior worlds it can create and complicate. This is a book I’m already itching to reread. Even with the dud straight in the middle, this book still makes quite the landing indeed.
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