Five Questions with Anne Carson

Anne Carson is a poet, translator, essayist and classics scholar. Her books, which play with form and resist genre classification, include Red Doc>, Antigonick, Nox,  Autobiography of Red, Glass, Irony & God, Decreation and others. Carson is a professor of poetry in NYU's Creative Writing Program, where she is currently teaching a class on "sophokles and john cage (egocircus 2015)."

We asked her these questions via email. 

1. What is your favourite natural weather phenomenon and why?

SNOWSTORM. WHITE WORLD, GOOD IDEA.

2. Can you describe your favorite word in Ancient Greek that doesn't have a perfect English equivalent?

I DON'T HAVE A FAVOURITE BUT AIGLA IS A NICE WORD, MEANS SOME SORT OF RADIANCE THAT COMES OUT OF THINGS TOUCHED BY GODS. 

3. How important, if at all, do you consider dreams?

DREAMS BORE ME.

4. What other thing (discipline, object, living creature, abstract idea) is poetry most like? 

[Editor's note: no comment]

5. Do you feel connected to any type of animal? Deer, owls, pizza rat, etc?

OTTER. SWIMS ALL DAY. GREAT LIFE.