From our Winter Issue: The poet AnneCarson, who lives and teaches in Michigan, spoke on Zoom with the British artist Tacita Dean, whose film Carson appeared in reading from a poem on Antigone.
In her 2019 poem “Sappho Drives Upstate ,” Anne Carson depicts a soothing pastoral scene of two white horses in a field—a timeless, bucolic vignette. Then the last two lines arrive like a shock to the system: “—you tore a hole, pushed your arm through, hit the switch.
CARSON: We rented a place and there was a spare room, which became mine. When you have a room of your own, you can work. So that’s what happened. I thought, “What can I do in this room?” And then there it was. Virginia Woolf was right about that. Just a room where you close the door and something will happen.CARSON: Yeah, even more so because writing seems kind of pointless in the contemporary world. I like drawing. I don’t know if you find drawing more frightening than writing, but I do.
CARSON: I’m too well-defended. But, yes, sometimes it would be preferable to dig a little more into the raw thing.CARSON: Well, that’s a deflection. There is more of a raw thing in words, but I can’t face that. So going sideways into drawing is a relief. But then, it also has these aspects of self-revelation that are scary. On the other hand, once you get going with a drawing, it’s so fun that it erases all that hesitation. The moment of wiping chalk onto the board is so exhilarating.
CARSON: Do you think some of that is the result of the pandemic, and just being in a closed room for months on end? Because time changed for me. Every day was endless and yet also too short with no middle. It felt like being in an igloo with a lot of snow outside and nowhere to go. Time had a different texture, and I don’t know exactly what that was. But it made the work feel different. And it made it seem more pointless to me, frankly.
CARSON: The more micro it is, the more beneficial, I found. You just go back into these little meaningless delights of everyday life, and it makes you feel like a Buddhist.CARSON: It depends on how much time you give it. You allow yourself however much time you have and need at night. Just 5 minutes or 30 seconds. I don’t think it matters how much. It just matters getting into that groove of thinking of the world as—CARSON: I would say on average, 17 items.
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