'Creating' Our World With Poetry

“We participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves.”– Anne Carson

Carson, born on this date in 1950, is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, and Professor of Classics, who has taught at Montreal’s McGill University, and at the University of Michigan and Princeton.   She holds the distinction of winning three of the most distinguished and richest writing awards – the Guggenheim, the MacArthur, and the Lannan.                                For Saturday’s Poem, here is Carson’s
Short Talk on Chromo-Luminarism
      Sunlight slows down Europeans. Look at all those
      spellbound people in Seurat. Look at Monsieur,
     sitting deeply. Where does a European go when he
     is ‘lost in thought'? Seurat has painted that
     place—the old dazzler! It lies on the other
     side of attention, a long lazy boatride from here.
     It is A Sunday rather than A Saturday afternoon
     there. Seurat has made this clear by a special
     method. "Ma méthode," he called it, rather testily,
     when we asked him. He caught us hurrying through
     the chill green shadows like adulterers. The
     river was opening and closing its stone lips.
     The river was pressing Seurat to its lips.


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