“INTERVIEWER Do You Think Of Yourself As Having A Relationship With God? CARSON No. But That’s Not

“INTERVIEWER Do you think of yourself as having a relationship with God? CARSON No. But that’s not bad. I think in the last few years, since I’ve been working on Decreation and reading a lot of mystics, especially Simone Weil, I’ve come to understand that the best one can hope for as a human is to have a relationship with that emptiness where God would be if God were available, but God isn’t. So, sad fact, but get used to it, because nothing else is going to happen. INTERVIEWER He’s not available because he chooses to remove himself or he’s not available because he doesn’t exist? CARSON Neither. He’s not available because he’s not a being of a kind that would fit into our availability. “Not knowable,”as the mystics would say. And knowing is what a worshiper wants to get from God—the sense of being in an exchange of knowledge, knowing and being known. It’s what anybody wants from any relationship of love, and the relationship with God is supposed to be one of love. But I don’t think any kind of knowing is ever going to materialize between humans and gods. INTERVIEWER Is it stymied because of the nature of the beast? CARSON Because of the difference of the two orders. If God were knowable, why would we believe in him?”

— Anne Carson, in an interview with Will Aitken for The Art of Poetry No. 88