Lavinia reviewed Decreation by Anne Carson
Review of 'Decreation' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I am not a huge reader of poetry, but for certain poets, I make an exception. One of them is Anne Carson.
Anne Carson is an interesting and unusual poet. Actually, I am not even sure if poet is the correct –or the only word to characterise Anne Carson, as her writing is so unusual in its form. It seems to be very little distinction between poetry and prose but it is exactly this plasticity and freedom in the form that makes Carson’s work so interesting.
A couple of days ago I found –in a box of books – another of Ann Carson’s works, Decreation. Published in 2006 by Jonathan Cape, Decreation is an eccentric literary work where the reader becomes an astonished witness to something abrupt and unsettling but at the same time to something exciting and spiritual.
Decreation is the name of a programme that Simone Weil called …
I am not a huge reader of poetry, but for certain poets, I make an exception. One of them is Anne Carson.
Anne Carson is an interesting and unusual poet. Actually, I am not even sure if poet is the correct –or the only word to characterise Anne Carson, as her writing is so unusual in its form. It seems to be very little distinction between poetry and prose but it is exactly this plasticity and freedom in the form that makes Carson’s work so interesting.
A couple of days ago I found –in a box of books – another of Ann Carson’s works, Decreation. Published in 2006 by Jonathan Cape, Decreation is an eccentric literary work where the reader becomes an astonished witness to something abrupt and unsettling but at the same time to something exciting and spiritual.
Decreation is the name of a programme that Simone Weil called for getting the self out of the way. It’s a neologism to which she did not give an exact definition nor a consistent spelling. “To undo the creature in us” is one of the ways she describes its aim.
It’s not always easy to understand what’s is going on in Carson’s work. It’s not easy to talk or to write about her work. When I start reading one of her books, I usually read the whole thing in a night or in a day. I am afraid that if I leave it for the next day, I will lose the connection with the spirit that inhibits her writing. What I most like in Anne Carson’ s poetry is that it is effortless and vivid. It’s deeply personal, characterized by the topics that preoccupy her – antiquity, Euripides, Homer, but also, mysticism, desire and love.
Read the full review at Maquina Lectora