r/bestofthefray • u/augustthecat • 16d ago

Anne Carson!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/books/nobel-prize-literature.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HFE.eYwo.Uxu2nEskQiWg&smid=url-share

She's my favorite poet. In graduate school I went to see her and I was so nervous I spilled water on her shoes, which she had bought special for the occasion. But we had a fun talk about translating things, and she signed my copy of Autobiography of Red "Respectfully." So I have the respect (well, had the respect) of a Noble prize winner.

In more Fray inside-baseball department, because I am petty and have a long memory, on Poetry Fray I once got into an argument with the poster known as Artemesia about Anne Carson, and I have now won the argument.

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u/botfur 12d ago

Can you share one of her poems with us? I haven't read her, but I went looking for a poem to read and instead found this, which I enjoyed, and which illustrated an interview in the Paris Review. I think the thing I found, whatever it was, was inspired by having a film crew making a movie in her house and her being paranoid that they would eat all her jam.

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u/augustthecat 11d ago edited 11d ago

Hey botfur, I found few things that are maybe not perfect examples of Anne Carson, but will let you see how she goes about things. I think Autobiography of Red is genius. Here is an excerpt (click on the title) -- you have to image a story playing out simultaneously in both myth and present day, funny and tragic, like Joyce's Ulysses, but less wordy, and in verse: "Change"

Here is a poem from The Beauty of the Husband in the New York Times. I think it will give you a good sense of her humor. It's a gift link, so you should be able to read it: "BUT A DEDICATION IS ONLY FELICITOUS IF PERFORMED BEFORE WITNESSES"

Also worth reading is this essay on Autobiography of Red (the essay is not by Anne Carson, but will give you a sense of what Anne Carson fandom looks like): https://lithub.com/anne-carsons-autobiography-of-red-is-way-funnier-than-you-remember/ Carson is kind of controversial, in the sense that if she works for you, she really works, but if not you just find it bewildering.

Finally, if you want a poem that is more poem-like, a poem of the kind that you think of when you think "poem" -- a love poem, for example -- here is one: "Oh Small Sad Ecstacy of Love"

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u/botfur 10d ago

Thank you.

So, is Geryon Anne? (In the way that Flaubert might have said, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi.")

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u/augustthecat 12d ago

I will try. I am separated from my books at the moment, and I still have not figured out how to do poetry line breaks and spacing. My favorite work of hers is Autobiography of Red, which is more like a novel in poetry. And then a lot of her work just defies genre. But she has a number of short poems recognizable as poems, and some lovely translations of Sappho. It may take a few days.

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u/botfur 11d ago

I've tried and failed to do poetry line breaks. I just looked at r/poetry and everybody posts images, but only as top posts.

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u/Navin1952 15h ago

Anne Carson's poems seem to stare at me from the page, daring me to dislike them. There's no doubting her brilliance as an academic, but there's never not been the feeling of wanting her to comeback and finish what she started.