Monday, January 20 at 10:24 AM
Mo: Ahh Anne
Alejandro: To time stamp this, the 2025 inauguration is happening rn
A: There's a novel unsteadiness to the book. I'm still coming back to this opening page.
Do you consider yourself a good swimmer? Can you relate to her anxieties?
[The speaker]
M: God...
Yeah that first page is doing kind of a lot for me, I'm also thinking about it in relation to where she gets on page 11 being like "sentences are strategic. they let you off."
First page feels almost like a grammar practice or a lesson in sentence structuring
Exploring the limits of sentences // of rationale
I'm a great pool swimmer, much less great in open water. Probably because of all of these types of anxieties actually, and a sense that I shouldn't be there beyond where I can touch the ground
A: That's really interesting. I feel like there are a lot of analogies made between swimming and living life in "1=1," do you feel a parallel like that within your own experience?
M: Ooh okay yeah what does 1=1 mean? Say more on that?
A: I think part of it is definitely some kind of search for axiomatic certainty
A: There feels like there's a struggle for that kind of thing
M: Yeah a search for truth that is a truth. And I do think there is something about a certain kind of intense swimming where you are so tuned into your body that maybe truths are able to feel more crystalline, the gray areas all come together to make something black & white for a moment, etc. 1 equals 1.
for the Joseph Conrad piece I was like yay she's dressing up as a man and then I was like why is it Joseph Conrad though
Also Carson asserts on the back of the book that these pieces are not linked -- "that's why I've called them wrong" -- but I don't know. Maybe there's just an inherent impulse to read anything bound into a book together as connected for me.
A: I have thoughts on inherent impulse. When I was working with Dan Beachy-Quick he talked a lot about why we write and tied it to an idea of spiral. We return so often to the same topics because they are what motivates us. We reproduce what we're trained to reproduce by that inherent impulse.
I realize that sounds a little strange. It was very light-hearted.
And on Anne's speaker's thing for Conrad, I think everyone has controversial faves! I think the controversy is the point. She wants to give a shout-out (?) Might need to research this more.
Tuesday, January 21 at 9:40 AM
M: Not strange at all, I'm so here for the spiral. Lots of interesting talk out there about time being a spiral, I think creative work definitely plays in that shape.
And I suppose Carson has a lot of projects where she is explicitly connecting disparate pieces and asking us to hold them together, so maybe her statement about this collection is also sort of just like hey I'm not particularly trying for that here. But how do you stop people from reading a book as a book.
I know incredibly little about Conrad, yeah. But I think there is something fun about specifically naming someone and writing about this impersonation not of his writing but of his dress?
A: Maybe she's trying her best by giving a disclaimer. Trusting her reader to listen when she gives instructions?
But honestly that's not the most effective strategy at all times
M: Yeah and I think the transitional pages (?) with the cut-outs of drafts and edits feel like a connective tissue kinda
We've got our first lineated piece with Clive's Song
A: I'm just such a sucker for that kind of thing. I love notebook scraps, it feels like I'm looking into someone's skull.
Do you consider prose poetry unlineated?
(Loaded question lol)
M: Oh man me too, and proof of drafting really gets me, love to see someone showing their work I guess?
Hahah if I had to give a yes or no answer, no I don't consider prose blocks to be lineated
But I do think it's complicated and like when I'm composing pieces in prose blocks I do feel very aware of where the 'lines' are still
And she has such thin formatting here that it is very different than prose that stretches across the page the way a novel would
So then you do get this opening line that feels like a true LINE
A: That's really fair!
M: and these "breaks" like in the middle of furtive, giving us the word fur there, feeding into the description of this person. The attention to once, which is our anaphora word throughout the piece and it stands out at the end of the line here. And then the second paragraph/block/stanza opens with a couple lines that also really feel like LINES
Splitting gray and vague over that break, the rhyme with away in the previous...
I don't know haha definitely a loaded q
A: That's a really good way of putting it. Ultimately the question is reductive probably
How do you feel about the voice of Socrates?
It feels very colloquial
In an anachronistic way
M: Sorry had a job interview, wild stuff
Very colloquial, yeah I mean it's Socrates referencing Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop?
I think to me like Socrates and Plato feel almost vague at this point? Like to write from their 'pov' gives me so little ground to stand on that it could almost just as well be any other anonymous speaker? I don't know, I'm pretty ignorant in that strand of classics though -- how does it land for you?
"Calm as linen is the lab at night, lamps on, black winter beating the windows." !!damn fine sentence!! Little poem in itself
A: It's Socrates on his death bed speaking to someone who stands up for him in the Socratic Dialogues. Which were written by Plato. So its something strange for sure.
Eddy had a lot of heart to it
My favorite part was the dialogue outside of the auditorium
It all feels so peculiar, and delivered with a sort of detachment
M: The "(he turned from the bins)" part?
Okay that is interesting thank you. So then yeah, to put that in what reads as a prison, to have those modernisms. It is very Carson, it does make me feel curious about antiquity in a way she's good at.
Eddy does have a lot of heart! I wanted to sit with that one for awhile
A: It made me sad and didn't really cheer me up
Which I think is perfectly fine for literature, I just found it notable
M: Yeah I might be feeling that about the whole collection so far to varying degrees
A: Very fair
I think I would agree
M: Watching Bojack Horseman rn and it actually has a similar casual sadness
A: I understand what you mean
I think part of it is the attention to the sadness
Wednesday, January 22nd at 9:41 AM
M: !! yes
the attention to the sadness, yes, that
Thinking about that reading "Flaubert Again" and the speaker's writerly idea that "if I can find the words I can make it real" -- attention, for some writers, as staring and staring at something and trying and trying to find the words
Back on the limitations of sentences
A: I find it fascinating, the focus on the writing process and the novel
"If she were ever / really writing it would pull her down into itself and erase / everything but her decency." (43-4)
I think about this a lot when I'm thinking about working on something new
M: Ugh yes yes yes
REALLY writing
And that choice of "decency" there...yeah
Ooh say more about that
A: I think there's an impulse that comes very easily to "create something new" or to "create something pure or honest"
Like everyone who wants to write the next great american novel
They all want to be the genius who put together the thing in the way that makes the affect machine work
But everyone has already done everything: "she knew she had lost it...whatever 'own' / means in a world it is also 'again'" (44)
So I think there's a deconstruction of creativity into the self doubt that the impulse constitutes in reality
M: to want to write something that will make meaning in the world but more importantly create meaning in yourself, or out of who you are
Well self doubt and creativity have quite a relationship
Also makes me think about how people falsely equate creativity with originality, or the idea that something has to be new to be good
Which maybe is why I like that idea of 'decency' -- not brilliance or perfection
A: Yeah, that word 'decency' does seem enigmatically specific
Also, what a crazy mood
I'm gonna hold off so we can stay on pace together, but I have SO many thoughts on the skywriting
M: Kind of a crazy crazy mood kind of love that it keeps coming up
Haha okay I've read through Monday of skywriting and already feel like okay jesus this one's something
(at a coffeeshop rn and there's a couple in matching Jimmy John's sweatpants so I have to pay a lot of attention to that)
A: Do you buy a jimmy johns sweatpant at the shop?
M: That simply has to be how it's happening? Fleece and incredibly not subtle btw
A: That's pretty cool
M: Okay I've poured a fresh polar seltzer over ice I'm diving back into skywriting
A:
M: Oh!!
A: I am the sky -> drones
I didn't see that coming tbh
M: "Those starry skies don't come back."
A: Yeah!
Feels a little glib
M: There's a big creation myth energy here
The seven days
"No one can tell a story without believing in the reality of others."
Going from drones & the idea that "without the face, no ethics" to that
A: It really is a lecture, she came with points to be made
M: Yeah maybe a bit of a theory or an argument in there about Kant writing the line about the starry skies and the speaker saying sort of a 'those were the good old days' thing about that & that the world actually can be ruined in ways, moral lines can be crossed that we can't come back from
went on a reddit tangent about it
A: Omg, have you ever seen Tenet?
They have time that's weird in that one
M: Ooph no, that was the recent-ish time travel one?
Haha love when they have time that's weird
We've got the sky as the speaker, who is not god, but is doing the 'seven days' thing and is interviewing godot
A: There's so much happening at once
The tuesday is like figurative
And then the tuesday is also the day that kant would be writing about the sky and morals
And then the stars don't come back
What do the stars even mean in the metaphor lmaooo
M: Haha okay yeah so Tuesday is the enlightenment, is the day the sky becomes clouds to be studied, is the day that ends with the John cage quote (all over this book btw??) that "something has to be done to gt us free of our memories and choices."
Carson's got me out here googling rectitude
The stars are maybe the rectitude the morally correct
A: Okay, I'm reading this now
This makes sense
M: how it talks about outlawing the crossbow because it is inglorious to kill from that distance -- once you've abandoned the moral law (stars) that demands if you must kill someone you do it yourself, you can never get that back
drones, now, instead of stars
Thanks, Anne
A: Whoa!
Thursday, January 23rd at 12:38 PM
M: It just got named as a finalist for the nbcc for poetry and so I'm thinking a lot this morning about what it does to read this as a poetry book I guess?
A: I think it kind of keeps Anne in a pigeon hole
But honestly, a lot of these are pretty poemy
What are your thoughts on these little gay greek dudes?
(People were a lot shorter on average in antiquity)
M: Hahahhah okay I have been trying to figure out how to ask like is some of this fan fiction for Ancient Greek philosophers
And I'm into it of course
A: Yes! The thing is that's what Plato was doing in all his stuff to begin with
M: An epic human pastime
A: So I think it's mainly a joke on Plato with a side of gay and ancient greece
Which feels very Carson
M: Yes very
It also feels more escapist or fantasy than some of the other threads in the collection
A: Very very true
It feels similar in voice to the piece Krito
This mix of colloquial an anachronistic, but now its translated
Friday, January 24th at 10:37 AM
M: Yess very much so
And like the anachronisms become a part of the translating
A: Yes! That's totally it
M: Okay, go with me here -- on Monday I was at the Philadelphia museum of art and saw "Silent" by Pauline Boudry, a video piece where she starts by recreating John Cage's famous piece where he stands silently and the sound of the world around him is the piece etc etc
And I took extra note of it I guess because we were reading this and John cage had come up in the book
One of the people I was with was like this is taking the whole contemporary art "I could make that myself" thing to another level because someone else did make it and then she just made it again
And I guess I'm thinking about that in relation to this idea of translation and maybe the need or desire, culturally, to continue to 'translate' things into modern language or modern scenes or modern understandings, modern bodies
And I guess I feel grateful and it feels like a very true impulse to have Carson doing that with these little gay greek dudes
A: That's beautiful!
It reminds me of a piece I love
Its a translation of Torso of Apollo and its presented instead as a transposition
I find it fascinating
Its from the May 2022 issue of Poetry
This is what she had to say about it
Saturday, January 25th at 10:25 AM
M: Ohh wow wow wow okay yeah
So into this transposition vs translation line of thinking
"In music, a transposition shifts each chord and note of a piece into a new key while retaining the melodic structure. I wrote the poem after seeing a plaster cast torso of Apollo defaced by graffiti. It seemed to me that with one word, one gesture, the entire classical tradition was called into question."
Also I think with the classic torso poem and with what Carson is doing there is something about taking something from true antiquity and the second you let something modern touch it there is this massive shift
Also good lord with "would not, from every morsel of itself / extrude a tomb: for here there is no flesh / to witness for you."
Gonna have that playing in my head
A: That is an interesting idea
M: Feels maybe related to the whole 'what does it do to set Shakespeare plays in modern settings/costuming' conversation
Or maybe I just happened to have that debate last night so I'm seeing them as related rn
(Is Shakespeare antiquity yet? I guess not?)
(The Romeo & Juliet on broadway rn is scored by Jack Antonoff)
A: No, because I've always been obsessed with the Baz Luhrmann version
(I didn't even know there's Romeo and Juliet on bway rn)
M: Hahaha watched the gas station scene on YouTube last night
(It's very very hip?)
(The actress from the most recent hunger games and kit Connor from Heartstopper. She sings in it? Which I'm not sure how they're making that work in Shakespeare but okay)
Instagram wants me to go see it sooooo bad
A: I think its so inspired, that gas station scene is such a good opening
Insta advertising makes things look so cheugy sometimes!!!!
I think she was also the lead in the newest west side story, which is also romeo and juliet (?)
Also, completely honest, I haven't read my pages for the last two days
M: You're so good, I also didn't make it happen today, something about knowing it was a trilogy of pieces it just wasn't in my Saturday cards
West side story is Romeo and Juliet yes yes maybe everything is
Sunday, January 26th at 12:18 PM
A: So true!
The romeo and juliet paradigm
M: Haha that's the fresh bright new ideas I'm bringing to the field of literary criticism
Monday, January 27th at 8:32 AM
M: Okay explicit Romeo & Juliet mention in Thret 2 not even kidding
Also something in the Threts kind of got me? Maybe the crows
A: Say more!
M: "It's not the caaawing and the haaawing and the flap and the din of other creatures that is completely mysterious, it's when they sit silent staring at the same piece of air." (146)
Like I don't know good lord
Also just always emotional about crows rearranging the bodies of their dead
But yeah the Thret trio is such a sudden narrative!
A: I would agree
It feels a little more intimate than a lot of the other stuff in the book
M: Yeah a bit more of a fleshed out character
Staying with him long enough that it does something
A: Yeah, that makes sense
M: Okay I'm getting toward the end
Just finished with the python piece
Woof
A: I've been feeling that the pieces have been getting more disparate this late into the book
M: Yeah maybe a bit more "this is stuff I happened to have written recently"
A: That's possible
Its interesting to finally have those questions that have been appearing throughout the book come together for that Visitors piece
But I don't have a clue where to connect abusive-KGB-gays-python-dead-brother thematically to the rest
M: It is, yes! Enjoyed the feeling of these drafts sort of coming together in that way
Hahahha okay yeah????
Like!!!
And the master/slave/drugs of it
A: Yep yep yep
What's the most standout part for you with the python story
M: It does feel similar a bit to the Thret story in the way incredible violence is discussed with a certain tone
Very matter of fact maybe
A: Ooh yeah, that's a good point
M: Most standout to me though might be the description of the dirty yellow light of morning as they're all sitting around the table waiting for the cop
A: Gosh! Very evocative
I'm still thinking about the first python swallowing
Very freaky
M: Ugh true Honestly just the reveal of the python
A: Very unexpected
Tuesday, January 28th at 8:36 AM
M: The whole book was kinda not what I expected
Denser, I think
A: I def didn't expect the density
Some of this toes the line with prose
Not that it really matters if its poetry or prose in the book I guess
M: Very little negative space to spend time in as a reader
A: Yeah, def less than the average collection I feel
M: I feel myself wanting to make some sort of concluding remark
But I don't know what it is I want to say or ask exactly
A: Maybe something a little reflective. As we went along it felt like we commented on things less. Do you feel like that's a symptom of this book, or this process?
M: That's a good question. Maybe both? Maybe the halfway point to close to the end of the book I had less comments, but also maybe we hit the weekend and I had more expected of my time. What do u think?
A: Yeah, maybe somewhere in the middle The desire to read this book dropped off drastically for me after the first few days
M: I think it continued to do a lot of the same thing so I was less curious about what would be next
A: I love my drama and tension, so not having a strong developing theme might have slowed me down
M: Yeah the stakes kind of reset for each piece
I feel like, with the draft bits included too, it sort of felt like rifling & reading through a drawer of Carson's desk
(Also the first half seemed fairly interested in state violence (us aggression in the middle east, prison systems) but then the second half has these narratives about like almost cartoonish gang violence and then the intimate violence of a home invasion...trying to figure out how to track that maybe but I agree it didn't feel strong or developing)
A: I think that's a good point! Personally, I feel like it opened with the stronger work
Have we turned against this book?
M: Hahaha I think ??? I mean she's a brilliant writer. I find a lot of the individual pieces in the book impressive. I'm not sure exactly what the book itself wants or is interested in? But maybe that's my biases
Like the individual pieces I'm on board
The larger project is tough because the book is explicitly saying it isn't a project, but by dint of being bound together it becomes a project
A: That's true Does your impression of the book as something artificial change? Could this be a challenging of the genre of book?
M: It is entirely possible.
Just read a Kay Ryan essay recently where she talks about eating lunch with Dorianne Laux and Major Jackson and "Major talks about not yet feeling he has an arc for his new book. (What is an arc? Dorianne explains that this is a term current in creative writing circles and refers to a shape the whole book of poems should ideally have, like a narrative arc, as I understand it, and forgive me if I have this wrong.) Already it is coming to me why I don't have more of this camaraderie; just the thought of vogue shapes for poetry books oppressed I feel -- so many of us writing books of poetry, with or without arc. How in the world can I feel really, really special?" -- Pg 60 in Synthesizing Gravity
Maybe a very contemporary & consumeristic idea that a poetry collection has to be building in a particular way?
Also I think pushing back against the structures of a book is something Carson is interested in
Her book/collection Float has each piece printed in a separate pamphlet and then you're instructed to read them in any order you choose
A: Whoa, that's not something I knew about
M: I probably should've brought it up a week ago when I was first like man why is Anne telling me these pieces aren't related
A: So is there a feeling that she was trying to intentionally alter the 'book experience' with this one?
M: Yeah I think I feel that in the project Maybe not as explicitly as in Float
But I guess she's even titling the thing 'wrong', acknowledging that she's not following the script
A: So what do you make of the last piece sharing the title?
I don't know if I spotted a thematic throughline there
M: Yeah no the last piece is almost echoing the disconnected nature of the whole book
A: Say more!
M: I guess it's the thing poetry and all art is able to do where it lays two disparate things next to each other and then the viewer creates meaning between them and that's beautiful and interesting and human
But there is maybe a balance
Or a trust required
Actually later in that same Kay Ryan essay she's talking about watching Anne Carson give a reading at AWP and how Carson inserts colloquialisms into ancient texts and she says something along the lines of 'it isn't always pretty or interesting but it does always catch me off guard'
And that might actually speak a lot to my feelings about the collection and her constant switching to a new thing or inserting a new idea
A: That's really interesting. I can also relate to that feeling of being caught off guard
M: There is some power to that
A: Definitely It feels related to 'the power of the translator' so to speak
M: Like to be able to create that effect?
A: Yeah
M: Yeah to translate the work alive enough to have that spark in it
A: Good point!
I wonder if this is a larger trend in contemporary translation that I'm just out of touch with
M: There are definitely scores of academic papers subtweeting one another about this kind of stuff
– THE END –
FURTHER READING
“Silent” by Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, 2016, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet: Gas Station Scene
Synthesizing Gravity by Kay Ryan
Alejandro Derieux is an editor at Big Table Press. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI.
Mo Fowler is an editor at Big Table Press and has work out recently in The Minnesota Review and The Hopkins Review.
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