Anne Carson

so how’s it going with the Parkinson’s? you say and I startto say every moment bleeding to death around me but the

therapist cautioned me yesterday don’t say dread call itdiscomfort you’re not in danger you’re uncomfortable so

I say the person is in a state of intense receiving of self theperson feels real to themself and you say aren’t there pills

for dread...

1

breakfast is ready Dadhappy birthday to you it’s not my birthdayyou better get a move on sit down Dadwho’s been using my razor you don’t have a razorwhy don’t you just bugger off sit down eat your eggsthat’s a hot mess I know you don’t like the yolks so eat the white okay eat the toasttoo late too late Dad don’t cryyou been using my razor okay yes I...

This​ is an essay about hands and handwriting. I think of handwriting as a way to organise thought into shapes. I like shapes. I like organising them. But because of recent neurological changes in my brain I find shapes fall apart on me. My responsibility to forms can’t be gracefully fulfilled. Nonetheless, I offer the following in the hope it does not strike you as dishevelled or...

So,​ your life. There it is before you – possibly a road, a ribbon, a dotted line, a map – let’s say you’re 25, then you make some decisions, do things, have setbacks, have triumphs, become someone, a bus driver, a professor of Indo-European linguistics, a pirate, a cosmetologist, years pass, maybe in a family maybe not, maybe happy maybe not, then one day you wake up...

JulioJulio likes to ask a good question in a bad way. Do most of your students fall in love with you? He is a recovering addict but he does not see himself as a statistic, here I am quoting. He describes his novel, which is about the 65th Infantry of Puerto Rico. I watch the clothesline out back, bouncing on the wind with its four frozen shirts.

LongLong talks about waking beside a man bleeding...