Opera et Cetera

Carson Ciaran

ISBN 10: 1852243961 / ISBN 13: 9781852243968

Published by Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle, 1996

About this Item

Lightly worn copy.

Seller Inventory # 6605178

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Opera et Cetera
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1852243961
• ISBN 13: 9781852243968
• Binding: Soft Cover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • LITERATURE
  • Amazon

About this title

Synopsis

Torqueing and tuning his long lines to the demands of rhyme, Carson skitters from Northern Ireland to Romania to the “twin volcanoes—Balalaika, Karaoke,” from the Irish language to the Latin roots of English. In the opening series of alphabet poems, Carson turns the synchronic ABC’s into isolable histories, miniature mysteries that, in sequence, compose a sinister, narrative trajectory, one that may not arrive at an ending, or that may conclude by questioning its beginnings. Meaning itself may fail in its delivery, as the final poem of the sequence “In the morning you open up the envelope. You will get whatever / Message is inside. It is for all time. Its postmark is ‘The Twelfth of Never’” (“Z”). Words and stories proliferate, exuberantly and often hilariously, as Carson makes play of the “work” that is “Opera.”