Anne Carson

[enter Norma Jeane as Mr Truman Capote]

Norma Jeane:

                           Enter chorus.                           I am my own chorus.                ...

Gods do not fall, falling is human. Fall at the start, from between the knees of your mother to the ground. Fall again at the end. Gods, no. Even when new they didn’t lose their balance. They never will now. Even in battle they glare and fuss and stumble, receive light wounds, but don’t hit the ground. Have very little to do with the ground. Traverse it faster than thought. Feet...

Although gamma is the third letter of the ancient Greek alphabet, the fourth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics is called Metaphysics Gamma because there are two extant Metaphysics Alphas and (may we suppose) no one could bear to call one of them lesser, so references to the fourth book are given as Metaphysics Gamma (IV) or sometimes Metaphysics IV (3), this being the book where Aristotle...

The fate of the earth. The fate of me. The fate of you. The fate of Faisal. The fate of the court where Faisal will plead his case. The fate of the court’s bias. Every court has a bias. It sifts to the surface gradually. The fate of whomever we drink to after court. The fate of that branch of mathematics that deals with ‘dead-end depth’. The fate of Yemen where Faisal will...

Out of the folds of the heavenly things I was dreaming of Tom Stoppard in a car saying do you want to come look at my etchings and I thought here at last is someone who will know how this drear phrase came to refer to close acts of humankind so I said what does that really mean do you think and he said sex and I awoke in tears because I suddenly remembered when my Dad died I had to pawn his...