From Publishers Weekly
Despite her fastidious, ornately post-modern style, Carson finds her subject matter in classicism. The fruits of this unique, difficult combination are strikingly displayed in this selection of her published work. Seemingly composed of equal parts enigma, experiment and exegesis, Carson's writings incorporate a dizzying spectrum of forms?prose poem, mock interview, travel journal, academic essay. "Mimnermos: The Brainsex Paintings" explores what are perhaps figmentary fragments of the ancient Greek poet's work, which divulges "a kind of hunger for the motions of the self that we are mining still." The blurb-like, often humorous paragraphs and prose poems of "Short Talks" (which are "on" subjects as varied as chromoluminism and Sylvia Plath) and "The Life of Towns" (with stops in "Apostle Town" and "Town of Greta Garbo") afford the pleasure of a whimsical crossword puzzle. But Carson achieves a surreal, perplexing brilliance in "Canicula di Anna," a 53-section poem partially set in the paintings of the 16th-century artist Perugino. The final selection, "The Anthropology of Water," takes an abruptly confessional turn, though one measured (as the title suggests) by the poet's near-scientific intellectualism that, as in all these writings, gives her work a dazzling lucidity.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Carson's poetry and prose defy categorization as much as they blur the boundaries of their own forms. In fact, nearly formless, Carson's writing resists convention through word variation and substitution, stretching language to create new meanings, formulas, and outcomes. For example, in "The Life of Towns," town becomes a representative letter like
a in the formula: if
ab and
bc, then
ac. In other words,
townviewpointself and
self includes all the various vantage points and different ways of expressing vision. Carson, a professor of ancient Greek and Latin, incorporates classical languages and a mythological sensibility in surprising ways throughout her work. The strongest and most engaging section is "Short Talks" (from her book by that title), which was excerpted in the
1992 Best American Essays but could have just as easily appeared in a poetry anthology. The pieces have the appeal of haiku and the experimental quality of language poetry by Scalapino and Lauterbach. These "talks" gracefully unite the vivid metaphor and rhythm of poetry with the contemplative and digressive discourse of essay. Carson knows the rules of language and how to break them. This is stimulating, rare, and challenging writing, fabulous food for thought--for the adventurous reader.
Janet St. John
