Anne Carson

Some people know that Anne Carson is one of my heroes (I used to have three others, all named Robert -- two are living; one died in 2005). And some of those people have some idea why she is my hero. For those who don’t, and in honour of National Poetry Month, I am including two pieces from her series called “The Truth About God”, originally published in the collection, Glass, Irony and God in 1995.

As Susan Sontag put it, “She is one of the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote.” Me too. Here’s a small suggestion of why:

God’s Woman

Are you angry at nature? said God to His woman.
Yes I am angry at nature I do not want nature stuck
up between my legs on your pink baton

or ladled out like geography whenever
your buckle needs a lick.
What do you mean Creation?

God circled her.
Fire. Time. Fire.
Choose, said God.


Would be Her 50th Wedding Anniversary Today

Cold orates upon a Roman wall.
Light is extreme (caught)
and shadows wait like
hoods to drop.
Brain taps
twice
for salt.

Was it Ovid who said, There is so much wind here stones go blank.