On Anne Carson--critical book chapters by Jennifer K Dick

It is a nonstop celebration to have Anne Carson finally be given the wonderful Nobel Prize. Her work merits this accolade for a zillion reasons, which everyone is busy enumerating. My personal journey with her works began when I read "Kinds of Water" in the Haymarket Café in Northampton, MA when I was 18 years old. And when in 2010 I was hired in Mulhouse, France, I began teaching her works off and on until, about 10 years ago, it became a constant for my L3 students to study 3 of her books (varying which) at the Université de Haute Alsace in Mulhouse, where the library also ordered and carries a wonderful collection of Carson's work. 

I never tire of rereading, re-exploring, re-reflecting on her works. But as a critic it has taken me time to go from overall excitement and curiosity to acquire a more mature, critical distanced perspective capable of relating how I am experiencing the writing. Thus, as a critic, my reflections on her vary from the critical-personal (the chapter in Wilkinson's book) to the recent chapters which I think provide new paths to reflect on how one might approach reading Carson. I hope readers might find thse have something to contribute to the scholarship and reading of Carson as everyone begins to reflect and write more and more deeply on her. 

The strongest chapter I have composed on her work appears in the now ready for pre-order volume available at University of Michigan Press. Here is a small list of my book chapters on Carson, and where you can procure a copy of the books they appear in:

1) 2026: Jennifer K Dick, “De-Stabilizing the Known / Restoring the Unknown: Reading Anne Carson through the Lens of Quantum Physics”, in Anne Carson and the Unknown: Contemporary Perspectives on Poetic Experimentation, Edited by Helena Van Praet and Christine Wiesenthal. University of Michigan Press, December 2026: available for pre-order HERE. (image at top of post)

2) 2022: Dick, Jennifer K. “The Dissenting Red Self: Lyn Hejinian's Tribunal, Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red & Bhanu Kapil's Incubation: A Space for Monsters” in Couleurs et Cultures / Colors and Cultures: Interdisciplinary Explorations edited by Sami Ludwig, Astrid Starck-Adler and André Karliczek. ISBN: 978-3-00-073026-9. (364 p), pp. 143-152. Available on Amazon HERE

3)  2016:  Jennifer K Dick: "Circles and Lines  / Limits and Extentions : The Kinetic Conflicts Inherent in Anne Carson’s The Life of Towns and Wassily Kandinsky’s Point and Line to Plane", Point, Dot, Period… The Dynamics of Punctuation in Text and Image, dir. Pascale Tollance and Laurence Petit. Cambridge Scholars, UK (215p.), pp. 48-68. Hardback ISBN: 1-4438-8806-0 ebook ISBN13: 978-1-4438-9234-6 available HERE

 

 

 4)  2015: Jennifer K Dick, “The Pilgrim and The Antropologist” [on Anne Carson's "Kinds of Water"] in Anne Carson: Ecstatic Lyre, edited by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, University of Michigan Press, Paperback : 9780472052530, Hardcover : 9780472072538, Ebook : 9780472120901, January 2015. https://press.umich.edu/Books/A/Anne-Carson2 (230p), pp 63-68. Available HERE

 

 

3 Forthcoming Publications of poetry and critical prose by Jennifer K Dick

So excited to have poetry and a critical chapter appearing in the following publications: 

Please keep your eyes peeled, or pre-order: Gutter 33, Arcturus Magazine or the critical book Anne Carson and the Unknown from University of Michigan Press to support my, Jennifer K Dick's, writing and that of so many others. 

GUTTER Magazine (Scotland) has kindly accepted for publication in its February issue, N° 33, the poem "Siren" (pp 16-18) from my forthcoming BlazeVox book Shelf Break. The Gutter Mag issue is full of some spectacular writing that I am thrilled to be published alongside, including authors I wish I had already known but now am thrilled to have discovered thanks to them, such as the amazing Ayaka Florence Nguyen, with their unexpected cultural fusion Noh play they explain is inspired by Scottish folklore and is titled "An t-Each Fon Uisge" or Christian Wards' spectacular and hilarious "Polar Bear" prose poem as well as the poem that makes me want to tuck myself under a duvet with a good scotch and give it another and another reread: Ben Blyth's "Peat Smoke". There is also a really rich, moving at times, and thoroughly thought-provoking interview by Zain Rishi of Rebecca Ferrier. The issue also features fabulous reviews, short stories as well as some translations of Chinese poetry, too. So, thank you to the Gutter editors for including my poem, and for readers and art supporters everywhere for picking up a copy or subscribing. 

 

Arcturus: A Magazine of New Perspectives--has also kindly accepted poetry which is forthcoming this spring online. In this case, 2 of my more recent CERN prose poems--CERN 68 and CERN 70. The adventure continues! I am thrilled to have work selected for inclusion in this dynamic online magazine, which is explained in their about section as Chicago Magazine editor"an online literary magazine of new perspectives in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid genres". The work already published on the site is really a treat to read and worth checking out, such as the rhythmic "Mysterioso" poem after Thelonious Monk by Chris Ritter, or the wonderful nonfiction piece by Yoko Lida Frost "The Citizenship Test"--this is a strong prose piece fitting to reflect on (especially its optimism) in our current context. As she is being sworn in, observes and asks of another person, a Cambodian being naturalized with her, "How could she move on as a citizen of the country that had bombed and killed hundreds of thousands of her fellow countrymen, which, most believed, led to the rise of Pol Pot? Would her stories ever be heard, and become part of American history? Who writes it? We’d better write it. That would be the only way to make our oath worthwhile, and to prevent the next genocide." Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that, Yoko Lida Frost, and thank you to the readers and editors of Arcturus--poetry director Chrissy Martin, and current poetry editors Belee Jones-Pierce and and Sara Verstynen who have accepted my work. 

 

Lastly, I am very excited to have gone through the laborious but extremely enriching editing process with the amazing Helena Van Praet and Christine Wiesenthal in whose hands my chapter “De-Stabilizing the Known / Restoring the Unknown: Reading Anne Carson through the Lens of Quantum Physics”, has matured and soon appears in the already ready-for-pre-order critical edition on Anne Carson:  ANNE CARSON AND THE UNKNOWN, ed.s Helena Van Praet and Christine Wiesenthal (Univ of Michigan Press, 2026—available at: https://press.umich.edu/Books/A/Anne-Carson-and-the-Unknown) I hope that those of you who study, teach and read Carson will get a copy of this book and also encourage your university libraries and students to also pick one up.