MEET THE WRITER: ANNE CARSON
POSSESSIVE USED A DRINK (ME)
A LECTURE ON PRONOUNS in the forms of 15 SONNETS
BY CHANCE THE CYCLADIC PEOPLE
13 SEPTEMBRE 2025, BOZAR
Saturday night, I have a cold and I’m breathing less easily.
Do you think of your saliva as a personal possession or as something you can sell?
Anne Carson asks me in her Triple Sonnet of the Plush Pony. I think of these fluids as “me” – even though spit, snot, tears, sweat – seem to want to leave me tonight.
Such thinking will affect how a word like rape is defined.
Where does “I” end and “not-I” begin between sneezes and tissues? There is, at least, the sonnet RECIPE.
He
likes soup, she likes
nuts. They’ll have soup
with nuts.
In one corner, James Merry is playing the drum. An embroidery drum. The cotton is taut, the needle pierces the surface without the fabric loosening. Friction sounds in the microphone.
Although I eat this fish I don’t know his name
I hear this phrase in the hubbub. I close my eyes. With a blocked nose, I hear less clearly. I keep my eyes shut even though Inga Huld Hàkonardòttir is dancing. But I see her poorly, hidden behind the armchair.
Of course most English-made cabinets had a secret drawer. My question about that would be, where did they keep the key to the secret drawer? In another drawer?
A prose sonnet. Is there a difference between prose and poetry, Anne Carson? Prose is the house. Poetry is someone on fire running through the house, Carson replies. Always impassive, with white pages in her hands.
I do my thing
Alone in the library with her greek Lexikon. As for the rest, she seems to give free rein to her partner Robert Currie, relentlessly social and a life-long fan of John Cage. A lot of movement on stage – two videos, two choreographies, a chorus of five artists, a soundtrack, a drummer. Embroidery drum. And the voice, the voice of Anne Carson.
She had a T-shirt made for Robert Currie with the word “randomizer” on it, so people would stop wondering what he’s doing next to her. I don’t know if it works.
Part two: The Cyclades. Randomizer sticks to his role and calls out line numbers from the text at random. Carson reads them.
Randomizer: 10.0.
Anne Carson: Eventually the Cycladic people died out all except one, a ferryboat captain.
Randomizer: 5.0.
Anne Carson: The Cycladic people were very fond of Proust.
The structure of the text comes apart and re-forms itself. James Merry embroiders and un-embroiders the strings of a harp.
Randomizer: 7.0.
Anne Carson: To play a stringless harp requires only the thumbs.
The next morning, I reread the texts. My blocked nose no longer bothers me.
Roshan Di Puppo