You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that?
And I said,
Where can I put it down?
– Anne Carson, excerpt from “The Glass Essay“
Anne Carson, 63, is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. She was born in Toronto. She is known for her supreme erudition—Merkin called her “one of the great pasticheurs”—Carson’s poetry can also be heart-breaking and she regularly writes on love, desire, sexual longing and despair. She taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University. She was a Guggenheim Fellow and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. A high-school encounter with a Latin instructor, who agreed to teach her ancient Greek over the lunch hour, led to her passionate embrace of classical and Ancient Greek classical literature, influences which mark her work still. She teaches ancient Greek and she frequently references, modernizes, and translates Ancient Greek literature. She has published eighteen books as of 2013, all of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation, dramatic dialogue, fiction, and non-fiction. (Sources: Wiki & The Poetry Foundation)
Another favorite Anne Carson quote: “What is a Quote?”
Sources: Quote: Larmoyante. Portrait: Book Review. Find this poem: Glass, Irony & God
WOW.
Yes.
powerful words, good question. looks like she taught at u of m, just a mile from my house, wish i had a class with her, i would have sat enthralled.
What a wonderful experience THAT would have been!
Love this. Though my problem is not remembering enough these days.
Smiling. Me too!
Don’t put it down..give it away
let present stay..past go away
why carry it through..memories from yesterdays
smile if you are happy today
you did cry earlier..so don’t borrow sadness to ruin
present day 🙂 live today..
Beautiful Kalabalu
thank you 🙂
Although at quite a different level of speaking – “Don’t let people (who have hurt you, etc.) rent space in your head for free.”
Theresa, love this…
[…] (source avid Kanigan) […]
I wish that we could just “put it down” somewhere, and leave it there, and walk away…but it’s not easy. Some things just travel with us wherever we go…and I guess it’s just figuring out how to truly live in the present with the myriad of past experiences, good and bad, that live within us.
Yes, live, linger, languish. Yes.
I call it ASD, Attention Surplus Disorder. 🙂
I guess I don’t see it as necessarily a bad thing…
ASD. Good one!
I read this yesterday and I couldn’t put it down. (Seriously, no pun intended) I guess its a matter of not letting all that stuff overwhelm you; though its there in memory, incorporating only enough to learn.
Me too Carolann. This has stuck.
Reblogged this on saturn1ascends and commented:
Loved this snippet. Reblogging to check out more of her work!