{"id":558,"date":"2020-10-25T16:06:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-25T16:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/?page_id=558"},"modified":"2022-06-08T16:18:59","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T16:18:59","slug":"latest-release-visit-to-an-extinct-city","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/latest-release-visit-to-an-extinct-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Visit to an Extinct City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"548\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/vtaec-cover-grab\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?fit=859%2C1167\" data-orig-size=\"859,1167\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-title=\"VTAEC cover grab\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?fit=720%2C978\" class=\"wp-image-548 size-medium alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?resize=221%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"221\" height=\"300\" hspace=\"20\" vspace=\"15\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?resize=221%2C300 221w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?resize=754%2C1024 754w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?resize=110%2C150 110w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?resize=768%2C1043 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/VTAEC-cover-grab.jpg?w=859 859w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 221px) 100vw, 221px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Visit to an Extinct City<\/em> holds a fresh, personal lens to a seldom-seen, venerable ghost-town and archaeological site. It casts a rueful glance at the folly and profundity of \u2018historical reconstruction\u2019 \u2013 it raises an eyebrow towards guidebooks, tourism and what we think we do when we travel abroad \u2013 and with both hands, unexpectedly, it bestows us with a kind of metaphysical <em>vademecum<\/em>.&#8221;<em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Joanne M. Spurza, Associate Professor<br \/>\nDepartment of Classical and Oriental Studies<br \/>\nHunter College of the City University of New York<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr style=\"margin-top: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px;\" \/>\n<h2>Preview<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div data-url=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/deerbrookeditions\/docs\/visit_to_an_extinct_city_preview\" style=\"width: 720px; height: 491px;\" class=\"issuuembed\"><\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.js\" async=\"true\"><\/script><\/p>\n<hr style=\"margin-top: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px;\" \/>\n<h2>Purchase<\/h2>\n<p>Deerbrook Editions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deerbrookeditions.com\/visit-to-an-extinct-city\/\">www.deerbrookeditions.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr style=\"margin-top: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px;\" \/>\n<h2>Two Poems from\u00a0<em>Visit to an Extinct City<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Part IV<\/p>\n<p>Aeneas lands at the mouth of the Tiber.<br \/>\nSettlement becomes colony.<br \/>\nJupiter. Juno. Minerva.<br \/>\nThe river changes its course.<br \/>\nYou keep Rome fed: all grain comes through you.<br \/>\nInvaders take over, leave; pirates sack, leave;<br \/>\nSaracens. Emperors. Popes.<br \/>\nCartwheels carve ruts into basalt blocks.<br \/>\nSalts rise from the ground, dissolve cement.<br \/>\nFortunes made and lost; loved ones found and lost.<br \/>\n<em>Medea\u2014<\/em>Ovid\u2019s only play\u2014disappears without a trace,<br \/>\nbut his poems are handed down in many tongues.<br \/>\nLayers of dirt turn into layers of time.<br \/>\nSaint Augustine writes that his mother and he \u201cpanted with the mouth of our heart.\u201d<br \/>\nBuildings fall and no one picks them up.<br \/>\nThe book once loved no longer opened.<br \/>\nThe streets fill with rubble.<br \/>\nTomorrow will not be like today.<br \/>\nOrder slips into order of a different kind.<br \/>\nMarble gravestones\u2014inscriptions intact\u2014reused as drainage lids.<br \/>\nAbsence takes over from presence.<br \/>\n<em>Ianuaria<\/em>, described as a <em>frivolous girl <\/em>in graffiti, withers to a name derived from first month<br \/>\nof the Roman calendar.<br \/>\nThe river dries up.<br \/>\nThe empire falls.<br \/>\nThe <em>cardo <\/em>becomes overgrown.<br \/>\nIntrusive roots crack tufa blocks.<br \/>\nGrowth turns into decay turns into growth\u2014<br \/>\nback and forth blurs into a single line<br \/>\nuntil decay wins out.<br \/>\nNo one remembers what sacrifice to make to the gods to change unfavorable winds.<br \/>\nNo one\u2019s left to sweep the sand.<br \/>\nThe upper floor of the <em>insula <\/em>becomes the ground.<br \/>\nYou stick to time-honored ways but have a mind of your own.<br \/>\nThe imprint of roads that existed before the Roman grid<br \/>\nbecomes hard to find.<br \/>\nAnimals burrow. Birds nest.<br \/>\nThe connection between carved symbols\u2014branch, stick, and bracelet\u2014no longer clear.<br \/>\nHands and minds never stop trying to keep things from going away.<br \/>\nTourists pick up loose tesserae as souvenirs.<br \/>\nYou\u2019re seen from a window.<br \/>\nMyths replace history.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 20%; margin-top: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px;\" \/>\n<p>IX<\/p>\n<p>Afternoon sun lets nothing hide.<br \/>\nIt shines on things as they are,<br \/>\nas if time didn\u2019t exist around them,<br \/>\nas if one moment were as good as the next.<br \/>\nThe past stands still beyond its reach.<br \/>\nIt cannot bring the dead back to life.<br \/>\nIt cannot undo what has been done or not done.<\/p>\n<p>How <em>old\u00a0<\/em>old looks up close.<br \/>\nI didn\u2019t expect so much dust,<br \/>\nso much not-there-ness of years past.<br \/>\nLittle of the lives lived in this city lasts in its remains.<br \/>\nDetails, colors, and forms have returned<br \/>\nto what they were before they were.<br \/>\n<em>Fragments of\u00a0<\/em>do not reveal <em>the meaning of<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The knowable has become, quickly or slowly, unknowable.<br \/>\nReal importance reduced to words about importance.<br \/>\nWhat has happened cannot predict what will.<br \/>\nNothing in this place not unaltered.<br \/>\nEach layer built over past and under future.<br \/>\nShovels and screens can\u2019t excavate the heart.<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s beneath will not be forced to show.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the world we walked in our expectations.<br \/>\nAbsence grows here.<br \/>\nThis is all there is.<br \/>\nWhat I want to see is gone.<br \/>\nWhat I want to see refuses to take no for an answer,<br \/>\nrefuses every emptiness.<br \/>\nEven so, what I want doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"margin-top: 25px; margin-bottom: 25px;\" \/>\n<h2>Review<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">Rome\u2019s harbor town, Ostia Antica, the other well-preserved ancient city in Italy, has long paled beside Pompeii, whose high drama and fiery demise fixed its place in literature and the popular imagination. Not so for the port city on the Tiber. But Teresa Carson\u2019s new Ostian poem comes to us in sixteen cantos, in English and Italian, as welcome as it is rare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">She takes us with her, on a revelatory first visit to the site, preternaturally attuned to all its discomforts and discoveries. Immediately we\u2019re immersed with her amidst a haunted, antique landscape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Step after step through this long afternoon of a poem, Carson works her alchemy\u2014from broken bricks and crumbling concrete, intently observed\u2014to meditations on the synecdoche of ruins, to contemplations, through her eyes, of loss and decay, on human mortality and the accidents of survival: \u2018Layers of dirt turn into layers of time.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>Visit to an Extinct City<\/i>\u00a0holds a fresh, personal lens to a seldom-seen, venerable ghost-town and archaeological site. It casts a rueful glance at the folly and profundity of \u2018historical reconstruction\u2019\u2014it raises an eyebrow towards guidebooks, tourism and what we think we do when we travel abroad\u2014and with both hands, unexpectedly, it bestows us with a kind of metaphysical\u00a0<i>vademecum.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u2014Joanne M. Spurza, Associate Professor, Program of Classics, Hunter College of the City University of New York<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/the-argument-of-time\/\">\u203a More about The Argument of Time Series<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &#8220;Visit to an Extinct City holds a fresh, personal lens to a seldom-seen, venerable ghost-town and archaeological site. It casts a rueful glance at the folly and profundity of \u2018historical reconstruction\u2019 \u2013 it raises an eyebrow towards guidebooks, tourism and what we think we do when we travel abroad \u2013 and with both hands, unexpectedly, it bestows us with a kind of metaphysical vademecum.&#8221; \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Joanne M. Spurza, Associate&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-558","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P70BCX-90","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":701,"url":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/the-argument-of-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":558,"position":0},"title":"The Argument of Time Series","author":"mandrews","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"My formal education in ancient literature has amounted to little more than a smattering from Homer and Ovid, and my knowledge of ancient languages has been limited to brief responses that I learned when the Roman Catholic mass was still said in Latin. Nevertheless, in my fourth decade I found\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"About the Argument of Time","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/About-the-Argument-of-Time-page-photo-138x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8,"url":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/about-teresa\/","url_meta":{"origin":558,"position":1},"title":"About","author":"tcarson","date":"October 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Teresa Carson\u2019s work centers on the themes of time, memory, and fragments. Carson holds an MFA in Poetry and an MFA in Theatre, both from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of seven collections of poetry: Elegy for a Floater\u00a0(CavanKerry Press, 2008);\u00a0My Crooked House\u00a0(CavanKerry Press, 2014), which was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/teresa-carson-about-page-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":563,"url":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/projects\/","url_meta":{"origin":558,"position":2},"title":"Projects","author":"Teresa Carson","date":"October 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"New Project: Argument of Time, Inc.\u00a0 \u00a0 The Argument of Time is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering public archaeology experiences through multi-national and multi-generational collaborations, across diverse artistic and academic disciplines, which result in site-specific performances in ancient and modern spaces that give audiences unexpected ways of experiencing personal,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"poet Teresa Carson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/046A9531-Teresa-Carson-R-ex-6in1-469x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":799,"url":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/time-out-of-joint\/","url_meta":{"origin":558,"position":3},"title":"Time Out of Joint","author":"mandrews","date":"November 2, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\"What if memories were archived, and the archives were trapped between worlds? The fresh journeys that Teresa Carson's poems take us through remind me of a pilgrimage into the misremembering of real places that were somehow lost. Very powerful and fresh, scripted spaces in the subjunctive tense, rather like Piranesi\u00a0revisited.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Time-Out-of-Joint-cover-7-18-213x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":711,"url":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/metamorphoses-book-xvi\/","url_meta":{"origin":558,"position":4},"title":"Metamorphoses, Book XVI","author":"mandrews","date":"April 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \"Juxtaposing the language of inventory, label, catalog, and dry art-historical description (complete with footnotes) with direct address to the departed and powerful expressions of grief in which language breaks down altogether, Carson braids her own experience of loss with an eloquent commentary on the irreconcilable relationship between archaeological artifacts\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Metamorphoses, Book XVI being read by the author, Teresa Carson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teresacarson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Met-XVI-page-photo-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/558\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.teresacarson.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}