Week Eight: Anne Carson

               
               In quick conversations about Anne Carson’s Nox with some of my classmates, the most frequently recurring word is “pretentious,” which has, so far, been consistently followed with the question: is this poetry? I both agree and disagree with this assessment (but mostly disagree). I remember several very similar conversations in my high school and undergrad music departments about John Cage: is his four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence really music? Does his chaotic orchestra of radios count as a song? Nox is pretentious in much the same way that some of John Cage’s musical compositions are—by which I mean that I think we say “pretentious” when we really mean “brilliance for brilliance’s sake.” Yes, self-indulgent displays of talent and ingenuity can be irritating, but I don’t think that makes them any less significant. It didn’t seem important at the time, but looking back, I can see that the concert of John Cage pieces I saw when I was fifteen was something that contributed to a big shift in the way I thought (and now think). It was a sudden realization that definitions and impositions of limits are not nearly as useful or productive in the world of art as they are in other genres of life’s-work.

                So when Stephen Burt points out in his review that Nox may be more akin to an artists’ book than the typical volume of poetry, I agree with him just like I agree with those who say Cage’s works are more like directions for performance art installations than music. But my answer to the recent conversations I’ve had about Nox is that being one type of art shouldn’t exclude something from also being another. So certainly it’s clear that Nox is a piece of visual art—it’s impossible to talk about the volume without discussing its unusual aesthetic qualities—but that doesn’t preclude it from being poetry.

                I love the way Nox’s structure (poetic as well as physical) creates an experience for the reader that goes far beyond the typical reading experience. Nox was exciting for me before I even opened it—it shipped in a box much larger and heavier than I expected to receive a book in, so I assumed it was multiple books. It was surprising when I opened the large box to find a smaller box. Its shrink-wrap suggested that there was something of value inside worthy of protection. After unwrapping it I tried to open the book like I would any other book—held up in front of me—but it was awkward and heavy and started to fall apart this way. The way Nox is built demands that the reader give it a place to sit, which I think seems important.

                During my reading of Nox I was struck by how my surprise at its form turned to a feeling of familiarity. I have a shoebox somewhere in my attic full of all the scraps that, though ultimately insignificant, still seem too important to throw away yet—letters, tickets, photographs, programs from recitals and concerts. Every few years I come across this box and set it on the table or floor in front of me in exactly the same way I had to set Nox down. When I dig through my shoebox of scraps I invariably discover memories I’ve forgotten. When I opened Nox I felt I was meant to discover something. Carson’s Nox is a box full of memories too, but rather than memories of her own life, they are the few fragments she has of her brother’s life. But I don’t think the form is limited to representing the memory box—it’s a coffin, a treasure box, and, as my friends have argued, an artists’ book, and probably many things of which I haven’t yet thought. I don’t think I’ve read any other book that can be defined as representative of so much.

                The poems themselves felt like a journey—I found myself wanting to rush past the translations of Catullus on the right to get to more of Michael’s life story, so initially I had to force myself to slow down to read the book in order. But when more of Carson’s personal words began coming through in the definition, I lost my urge to move on from the left-hand pages. It didn’t occur to me until reading Chaisson’s review that literally half the paper in this box is blank. The initial realization seemed like a disappointment in all the wasted space, but then I had to agree that a half-blank book is very fitting for a story about the death of an estranged family member. The one thing that I didn’t particularly enjoy about the book was the art. The photographs were so interesting and made all the words so real, but the strange paintings were more disturbing than enlightening. They all look like the artwork of a mentally ill person. I’m assuming that the eerie, disturbed quality of the paintings is meant to underscore the grief of the experience, but I wonder if there are other reasons for such stilted, untalented art in what is clearly a work of art.


*Photo credit: www.paintedfishstudio.com