Men in their spare time

Following the acclaimed book Autobiography of Red (1998), Anne Carson published a new collection of poetry and prose in 2000, a work that shows a captivating combination of opposites — the classical and the modern, cinema and the printed word, narrative and verse.

In Men in Their Leisures, the author reinvents very diverse figures, among them Oedipus, Emily Dickinson and Audubon. Carson creates surprising juxtapositions: Lazarus among video paraphernalia, Virginia Woolf and Thucydides discussing war, Edward Hopper paintings observed in the light of Saint Augustine. And, in a final text in poetic prose, meditates on the then recent death of her mother.

With a discreet and penetrating spirituality, a fearless humor and intense sensuality, without discarding the understanding that "the crux of the matter for humans is imperfection", this book constitutes itself as a dense, provocative and unforgettable work — showing us a singular poet at her best.