Decreate, Create, Participate

 

“We participate in the creation of the world by decreating ourselves.” – Anne Carson

 

Born in Toronto, Canada on this date in 1950, Carson is a poet, essayist and professor who has taught at Montreal’s McGill University and at both the University of Michigan and Princeton in the U.S.   She holds the distinction of winning three of the most distinguished and richest writing awards – the Guggenheim, the MacArthur, and the Lannan.  For Saturday's Poem - on Friday; Why not?  :-)  - here is Carson’s,

 

     Short Talk on Chromo-Luminarism

                         Sunlight slows down Europeans. Look at all those
                         spellbound people in Seurat. Look at Monsieur,
                         sitting deeply. Where does a European go when he
                         is ‘lost in thought'? Seurat has painted that
                         place—the old dazzler! It lies on the other
                         side of attention, a long lazy boatride from here.
                        It is A Sunday rather than A Saturday afternoon
                        there. Seurat has made this clear by a special
                        method. "Ma méthode," he called it, rather testily,
                         when we asked him. He caught us hurrying through
                        the chill green shadows like adulterers. The
                        river was opening and closing its stone lips.
                        The river was pressing Seurat to its lips.