Anne Carson. The poetic being
- In transit
- Oct 25
- 9 mins
It’s hard to pin down a single verb to describe Anne Carson’s presence in Barcelona. You might say she visited, passed through, recited, read or spoke. And once she’d gone, what lingered was not just a question, but a questioning – of who she is, what exactly she does, and what it is she wants to tell us.
The almost mystical quality of Carson’s presence is bound up with the myth of the famous poet – and with the near-primal awe that admirers have always felt towards the object of their devotion. A being made of lines, of right angles, of black and white, passed through the city like a transient angel – and only in the strange silence she left behind do you realise she had ever been there. “What just happened?”, we wonder. “Who passed through?”
Anne Carson, who?
It might be easy to call her a poet – but even that basic label is one she seems to resist. In her books, the only biographical note she offers reads: “She was born in Canada and makes a living teaching Ancient Greek”. Not “she is Canadian,” but “was born in Canada”; not “she is a professor of Ancient Greek,” but “makes a living teaching Ancient Greek.” A clear statement of intent. Her writing is just as elusive – impossible to categorise – and perhaps this is where her long-running game of cat and mouse with devoted readers begins. She explains herself through her texts, yet at the same time misleads us, playing with autobiography to tell us half-truths, so that we believe we know who she is – without truly knowing. It leaves us wondering whether she is really a woman, or even human at all – or simply a figure we’ve imagined into being. There is something almost unreal that sustains the myth, precisely because the individual herself ceased to matter long ago. The person who “was born in Canada and makes a living teaching Ancient Greek” no longer interests anyone. And yet her continued existence reminds us that she’s still there.
The real being
Anne Carson, the person, does indeed exist. There are things we know about her. We know, for instance, that she writes. This is evident in the dozens of books she has published, mostly poetry but also essays, and in the numerous awards she has received around the world, including the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the National Book Award, and the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, among others. She has also been awarded prestigious fellowships such as the Guggenheim and the MacArthur and is a long-standing candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is part of the North American literary elite, although she tends to keep her distance from its inner circles.
We know she is married to the artist Robert Currie, with whom she collaborates on artistic projects, such as the event held at the CCCB during the 2025 Barcelona Poetry Festival. We also know that she and Currie spend part of the year living in Iceland. And although she discourages biographical readings of her work, we know that her mother died in 1997 (Carson wrote an epitaph for her in Red Doc>) and that she had a complicated relationship with her brother, a drug addict who died in 2000 (his epitaph is Nox). More recently, we know that she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which has not prevented her from continuing to lead a relatively normal life, albeit adapted to her circumstances.
© CCCB, 2025 / Miquel TavernaFrom that point on, the person seems to fade and becomes a character – or rather, a kind of non-character. The way she presents herself to the world renders her almost ethereal. She has a delicate, almost fragile presence, often wearing the same distinctive outfit: trousers, a blazer and a tie; her white hair cut to shoulder length. Transparent glasses. On a darkened stage, she becomes an otherworldly figure, almost a spectre. She is aware of this. What we do not know is whether this deliberate transparency reflects a natural shyness, a desire to remove the person in favour of the text, or a performance crafted to leave us awestruck by the mystery of this elusive poet.
All of this is what we know – because we can see it, hear it, feel it. It is the empirical product of our senses. But once the presence ends, unreality begins. Anne Carson is known, above all, for her writing – and she has created a poetic canon so distinctive that it becomes difficult to pin down its foundations. Her knowledge of Ancient Greek and classical culture permeates everything she does. We see myth moving forward and backward through her work, forming a common thread between past, present and future. Yet we would be mistaken to think of her as a classical author, or as someone rooted in the literary canon and determined to follow a pre-established path. Nor should we see in her writing the ambition to belong to a regulated, academic poetic environment. Perhaps due to her connection with – or preference for – the visual arts, Carson seems intent on capturing the contemporary moment. Her texts, at once accessible and cryptic, bring us close to a fundamental artistic intention: an invitation to perceive – which need not always go hand in hand with understanding.
Barcelona
And so, Anne Carson was present in Barcelona, and a fortunate few were able to confirm it. Yet, at least at the CCCB, few were able to ask her questions – most of which were answered by her husband, Robert Currie – after a performative reading of two texts that came across as statements of intent. The first, “Possessive Used as Drink (Me). A Lecture on Pronouns”, was read seated, accompanied by a screen showing dancers, an artist embroidering and a dancer who entered and exited the stage.
The second poem, “By Chance the Cycladic People,” is a loosely arranged list of curious facts about the long-vanished Cycladic civilisation, with a particular emphasis on their supposed inability to sleep. Carson read it seated once more, following Currie’s enumerations, again accompanied by a backdrop of white noise that mirrored the previous performance.
At La Nit del Palau, the closing event of the Barcelona Poetry Festival, the poet simply recited – or rather, read aloud – a series of “short talks” about Homo sapiens. This time, she maintained her barely-there stage presence: black trouser suit, white shirt – a woman who may appear absent, yet is fully present. Or perhaps too much so. A woman who communicates best in writing, leaving the impression that silence might say more than words.
Anne Carson admits she doesn’t feel like a poet – the label, she says, feels burdensome and pretentious. She suggests we return to the Greek idea of poiesis: the poet as someone who makes.
Ending
And in the end – a presence. “Why is Anne Carson famous?”, one might wonder after seeing her in person. “Is Anne Carson a poet?” – that’s another question. In an interview, she admitted she doesn’t feel like a poet – the label, she said, feels burdensome and pretentious. She suggests we return to the Greek idea of poiesis: the poet as someone who makes. And perhaps that’s the answer – the conclusion that resolves the question posed at the beginning. Anne Carson is no Canadian, no professor, no poet. We do not know who Anne Carson the person truly is – she is a ghost, a myth, an invisible figure. She might not exist at all. She might be a fiction. The Anne Carson who is famous, the one we know, the one she permits us to see – the one who transforms aesthetic feeling into a form of truth – exists only as a poetic being: a being who does not simply exist, but acts. She was born (in Canada), earns a living (teaching Ancient Greek), writes poetry, comes to Barcelona.
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