Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

This brilliant book (reissued from 1997) is anything but plain. Carson
has a dazzling if often quirky imagination, and her extraordinary
scholarship intensifies her effects. The first part of the book is a set
of free translations from the classical Greek poet Mimnermos,
accompanied by a brief essay and three imaginary interviews with him.
The “Short Talks” that follow are very fine prose poems. The third
section, the most uneven one, is a scholarly joke: Carson imagines a
model who knew the painter Perugino, who was attending a conference of
phenomenological philosophers in his city, Perugia. The narrative
sections are, flat but there are some extraordinary meditations. “The
Life of Towns” is a set of jokes, with descriptions of towns with
names like “Pushkin Town” and “Town of the Sound of a Twig
Breaking.”

The heart of the collection is “Anthropology of Water,” three
sequences of short prose narratives. The first sequence meditates on the
nature of pilgrimage through the experiences of the narrator and
companion, who always seem at cross-purposes emotionally. The second is
a bizarre and unforgettable meditation on travel in a more contemporary
mode: a long trip of two lovers (also at cross-purposes) from Quebec to
Los Angeles. It is funny, tragic, and absurd. The third sequence is a
series of mysterious descriptions of the narrator’s brother swimming
at various times.

The entire work is held together by themes of the dysfunctional family,
especially the unhappiness caused by the senile dementia of the
narrator’s father. Carson’s stance throughout the book is wilful,
haughty, secretive. Perhaps these poses give the work much of its power.