Nox

By Anne Carson,

Book cover of Nox

Book description

Nox is an epitaph in the form of a book, a facsimile of a handmade book Anne Carson wrote and created after the death of her brother. The poem describes coming to terms with his loss through the lens of her translation of Poem 101 by Catullus "for his brother…


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Why read it?

2 authors picked Nox as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I first met this book on the last visit Gary and I made to a beloved bookstore in Seattle. After he died, I remembered it and tracked it down. It is an accordion book, its folded pages nested in a sturdy box. It was made, Carson writes, as an epitaph for her brother.

Among the folds, we find ephemera evoking his memory, and hers: fragments of notes, torn photos, drawings, paintings, scribbles. Running through the pages—a portion appears on the left side of each spread—is Carson’s translation of a poem by the Latin poet Catullus, written after the death of…

In Nox, Anne Carson delves into her complicated relationship with her brother and his death.

She writes, “No matter how I try to evoke the starry lad he was, it remains a plain, odd history. So I begin to think about history.” Carson offers us a collage of this history in an accordion book format which unravels page by page.

I have often unfolded the book across the room to interrogate the way she gathered the details of the experience. It feels so intimate to uncoil all the scraps and notes and pictures and pieces. Then, I fold it…

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