SOURCE: Zinnes, Harriet. “What Is Time Made of?: The Poetry of Anne Carson.” Hollins Critic 38, no. 1 (February 2001): 1-10.

In the following essay, Zinnes explores the recurring themes of fear, language, and time throughout Carson's oeuvre, noting the author's preoccupation with postmodern elements in her writings.

“What is the fear inside language? No accident of the body can make it stop burning.” So writes Anne Carson in an essay called “Kinds of Water: An Essay on the Road to Compostela,” in her most popular book, Plainwater (1995), that contains poetry as well as essays. Perhaps in that quotation lies the secret of the genius of the Canadian poet and classical scholar Anne Carson. She points to fear (and despite her productivity, her forthrightness about herself, she is shyly examining fear, the human fear manifesting itself in sex, love, travel, other people, other literatures). Here she specifically points to the fear...