IT'S ALWAYS something of a challenge to define the work of Anne Carson, and with her new collection, Float (published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart), the Canadian-born poet makes even the conventions of the physical book unconventional.
Float consists of 22 chapbooks “whose order is unfixed and whose topics are various,” housed in a clear PVC slipcase. According to Cassandra Pappas, senior designer for Penguin Random House in New York, both Carson and Robert Currie, her husband and longtime collaborator, were very involved during the two years it took to design and produce the physical object.