Anne Carson - Blog Posts
II. "Each"
He lay very straight
in the fantastic temperatures
of the red pulse as it sank away and he thought about the difference
between outside and inside.
Inside is mine, he thought. The next day Geryon and his brother
went to the beach.
They swam and practiced belching and ate jam-and-sand sandwiches on a blanket.
Geryon's brother found an American dollar bill
and gave it to Geryon. Geryon found a piece of an old war helmet and hid it.
That was also the day
he began his autobiography. In this work Geryon set down all inside things
particularly his own heroism
and early death much to the despair of the community. He coolly omitted
all outside things.
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
XI. "Right"
“Are there many little boys who think they are a Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the Dog they were sitting on the bluffs The dog regarded him Joyfully”
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Digital Play #2: Sappho Awaits Her Goddess, Aphrodite: “… if only I, O goldencrowned Aphrodite, / could win this lot…” [Anne Carson, _If Not, Winter_; #33, Knopf, 2002]. 11/26/2017.
Sometimes when I am reading a Greek text I force myself to look up all the words in the dictionary, even the ones I think I know. It is surprising what you learn that way. Some of the words turn out to sound quite different than you thought. Sometimes the way they sound can make you ask questions you wouldn't otherwise ask. Lately I have begun to question the Greek word sophrosyne. I wonder about this concept of self-control and whether it really is, as the Greeks believed, an answer to most questions of human goodness and dilemmas of civility. I wonder if there might not be another idea of human order than repression, another notion of human virtue than self-control, another kind of human self than one based on dissociation of inside and outside. Or indeed, another human essence than self.
from "The Gender of Sound" by Anne Carson
— from Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
"[...] Revising the perceived sad ending of the entry, Geryon again borrows from “Red Meat,” this time its final fragment, writing, “All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand/ in hand,” shifting away from self-centering and instead highlighting red’s continuance without him and its propensity for connection, despite Geryon’s own alienation. Redness is not exclusive to boys but can belong to breezes too."
— from Anne Carson: “Red Meat: Fragments of Stesichoros” by Kristi Maxwell
girl dinner xoxo
me and my mini skirts against the world 🤞🏻🤞🏻
[ID: A page of a play. It reads as follows, "Theseus: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend. / Herakles: I fear to stain your clothes with blood. / Theseus: Stain them, I don't care." End text.]
Herakles - Euripides (Tr. Anne Carson)
i love reading sad books bc when your own grief is stopped up inside you like a clogged drain you can grieve for a character on a page and understand that you're also grieving for yourself a little bit
What sense is there in pain at all - however we contrive it for ourselves as we cast about for ways to bind up the wound between us and God?
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
How I did waste and exhaust my heart.
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
Dum pudeo pereo (as I blush, I die) says an old love song. Blood rushes to the face, at the same time the heart seems to wither on itself and snap,
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
the light is not something you see, exactly. You don't look at it, or breathe, you feel a pressure but you don't look. It is like being in the same room as a man you love. Other people are in the room. He may be smoking a cigarette. And you know you are not strong enough to look at him (yet) although the fact that he is there, silent and absent beside a thin wisp of cigarette smoke, hammers you. You rest your chin on your hand, like a saint on a pillar. Moments elongate and drop. A radiance is hitting your skin from somewhere, every nerve begins to burn outward through the surface, your lungs float in a substance like rage, sweet as rage, no! - don't look.
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
There is no question I am someone starving. There is no question I am making this journey to find out what that appetite is. And I see him free of it, as if he had simply crossed to the other side of the bridge, I see desire set free in him like some ray of mysterious light. Now tell me the truth, would you cross that bridge if you came to it? And where, if you made the grave choice to give up bread, would it take you?
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
For his conversations about action (we have had more than one) are all descriptions of God
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
We live by the waters breaking out of the heart.
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
Are there two ways of knowing the world? a submissive and a devouring way. They end up roughly the same place.
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
He lives in a small country of hope which is his heart.
Anne Carson, Kinds of Water
to want and to wonder are parallel actions
- Jessica Fisher, Anne Carson’s Stereoscopic Poetics
‘Agamemnon,’ Aeschylus (translated by Anne Carson)
I walk and walk with cold hands. Back at the house it is filled with longing, nothing to carry longing away. I look back over my life. I try to find analogies. There are none. I have longed for people before, I have loved people before. Not like this. It was not this.
- Anne Carson
My Darling Muse (iii),
Dieter is in LOVE. He's just not sure if he's met them yet. But in the interim, he's keeping a journal to house all of his inspiration, poetry and recipes, before they fly out of his head. And once he meets the ONE...or ONES...this is going to be his gift to you. Along with those sexy time IOU's he's always handing out...
Triggers: it's Dieter bub so this series will DEFINITELY include profanity, drugs, blood, alcohol, sex, smut and any meanderings D wants...He's endlessly inspired by art, poetry, songs, sex and YOU!
Series Masterlist
Rothko's "Red On Maroon", thanks @thecutestgrotto for dividers!
My Darling Muse,
I am a gaping wound, Aligned with your iron fluidity Throbbing with the passion of blood Warming at your scalding touch Like lava, I flow unbidden, a verse of self unhindered and free Pulsing, ebbing, molten and boiling Pistoning forward in poisonous acid, I am the red monster Alight with desire, wings unfurled in splendor and terror I survey all and know little, a word unspoken A thought unuttered, a feeling unrequited, A husk of a shell unravelled, like trinkets in a wind chime My words bounce on a red dawn A red tide that bears stealthy fruition A soundless crimson wave of meaning, Into your chasm I plummet, into the red void I sojourn Feathered wings in pained approach Molt and melt like Icarus, I am the red death I am the maroon birth, I am love alight And rage unaltered (scribbled in margins: Was Rothko bi? Is blood a good paint substitute? What's it like to date a vampire? Can I list myself as a Google location? Online anger management...with goats.)
Hey folks! This is J, Dieter's PA. I'm not sure if he even knows who I am, but I also run his TikTok page so he can "commune with the proletariat". His fellow actor and good buddy Pedro Pascal recently recommended "Autobiography of Red" by Anne Carlson. And Dieter has similarly been obsessed with John Logan's production of "Red"....No Dieter, I won't mention you thought it was originally a musical about menstruation...
