Plainwater: Essays and Poetry - Hardcover

Carson, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679431780 ISBN 13: 9780679431787

Publisher: Knopf, 1995

Synopsis

From Anne Carson, the award-winning Canadian author of Autobiography of Red, comes a landmark collection that stretches the boundaries of genre, pressing the traditional form of the essay into new service. In succinct and astonishingly beautiful prose and verse, Anne Carson exposes the fragile differences between "I" and "you," and between the modern and the classical, in a voice that shatters convention with its integrity and clarity.

Carson envisions a present-day interview with a 7th- century BC poet; lectures on subjects as diverse as hedonism and Ovid; imagines a 15th-century painter's muse at a phenomenology conference in Italy; and in the final section presents a poetic travelogue of a woman's life that beautifully contemplates the difference between the sexes. Plainwater is a stunning collection.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The poetry and prose collected in Plainwater are a testament to the extraordinary imagination of Anne Carson, a writer described by Michael Ondaatje as "the most exciting poet writing in English today". Succinct and astonishingly beautiful, these pieces stretch the boundaries of language and literary form, while juxtaposing classical and modern traditions.

Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings of Plainwater dazzle us with the intervention and enlighten us with their erudition.

About the Author:

Anne Carson lives in Montreal where she is the Director of Graduate Studies, Classics, at McGill University. She is the recipient of many awards, including the QSPELL A.M. Klein Poetry Prize, the 1996 Lannan Award and the 1997 Pushcart Prize. Her most recent book, Autobiography of Red, was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0679431780
• ISBN 13: 9780679431787
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 260