Still Life
Still Life by Ciaran Carson, published by Wake Forest University Press in 2020, is a collection of poetry that intricately weaves together themes of art, memory, and personal experience. Spanning 87 pages, this edition invites readers to explore the connections between the visual and literary arts as Carson reflects on his surroundings, including the Belfast Waterworks and moments shared with his wife, Deirdre. The poems encourage a careful examination of both the details in a painter’s canvas and the fleeting nature of life itself.
In Still Life, Carson employs his skills as a master translator to draw parallels between the painter’s brush and the poet’s pen. The work navigates through various experiences, including visits to a chemo ward, while highlighting the significance of presence amidst illness and mortality. Readers will find a rich tapestry of imagery and emotion as Carson balances the desire to escape into art with the necessity of living fully in each moment. The collection resonates with themes of European poetry, particularly reflecting influences from English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh traditions.
Official synopsis Publisher
In Still Life, Ciaran Carson guides us through centuries of art and around the Belfast Waterworks where he walks with his wife, Deirdre; into the chemo ward; into memory and the allusive quicksilver of his mind, always bidding us to look carefully at the details of a painter’s canvas, as well as the sunlight of day. This master translator chooses here to translate the painter’s brush with the poet’s pen, finding resemblances, echoes, and parallels. A thorn becomes the nib of a writer’s pencil and the pointed pipette of a chemo drip entering the poet’s vein. Yet, Deirdre stands as much in the center of these poems as do the paintings. At times, the two seem to escape into the paintings themselves: “Standing by the high farmstead in the upper left of the picture–there!–in a patch of / sunlight. … They could be us, out for a walk.” Balancing the desire to escape into the stillness and permanence of art with the insistent yearning to be fully present in each moment, Carson reminds us–“Look! … There!”–that in the midst of illness, even in the face of death, there is, still, life.
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