Knots

Edward Carson, Edward John Carson

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780773547674
• eBook ISBN:
  9780773599574
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

The mind is made / of pleasures and / uncertainty, inviting / as it yearns to be both / puzzle and adversity

Full of philosophical digressions, questions, and answers, Knots forms a series of cyclical narrations, a kind of verbal asymmetry or mathematician’s knot, continuously mirroring its ideas and subject matter in a play of language and contrasting points of view.

"Flight of the Mind & Measure of the Stars" sets an itinerary and series of proposed directions for the book, its poems introducing the mind in action, laying down themes of art and memory, reason and belief, intimacy and desire. The final sections are composed of verses that can also be read as parts of two longer, interconnected poems. "The Occupied Mind" enticingly pulls us deeper into philosophical questions and answers about the needs of the mind and the ambiguities of love. The central conceit of "Minutes" offers sixty meditations that are both a measure of time and testimony, as well as a witnessing and confession of what takes place within a changing relationship.

Confronting the riddles and dualities of mind and heart, Knots provokes a layered interplay of reason, paradox, code, and cipher from our daily thinking and feeling. Actively engaging with the spoken strategies of thought, the nature of art, and our always unpredictable, evolving experience of love, we quickly discover the mind and heart are rarely what we expect.

Table of contents

• COVER
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• KNOT THEORY
• IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
• ALLOW A BABBLING BIRD
• DEGAS’S PETITE DANSEUSE
• MIRROR IMAGE
• DESIRE FLYING BY
• STARRY NIGHT
• CHAGALL, AFTER HALLEY’S COMET
• FLAMMARION AT THE EDGE
• HALLEY’S COMET AS SEEN BY GIOTTO
• EXAGGERATION SWOONS
• THE HUNTERS IN THE SNOW
• BLACKBIRDS MUST BE FLYING
• LANDSCAPE WITH THE FALL OF ICARUS
• ORANGE STILL LIFE
• LOOKING FOR LOVE
• HESITATION
• A BIGGER PICTURE
• ONE IS THE OTHER
• AUTUMN IN LOVE
• LOVERS
• WRITING THAT SNOW IS FALLING
• THIS REFLECTION OF YOU EMERGES
• THERE IS NO THOUGHT IN THINKING
• IN SPRING A PROFUSION OF BLACKBIRDS
• THE MIND THAT LOVES TO LOOK
• THERE’S THE RHAPSODY OF STARS
• THE FOOLISH MIND TOSSES
• OUR INTIMACY SPRAWLED ACROSS
• A MIND WITH A MIND OF ITS OWN
• AT THE HEART OF THINGS MEMORY
• LIKE NOISE OF THE POURING RIVER
• WHEN AROUSED THE AGILE MIND
• SO CONSUMED BY EVERYTHING
• LOVE LOST IS A SORROW IN THE HEART
• THE TRANQUIL MIND IS NO AIRY
• THE MIND THAT KNOWS BEST
• IF YOUR VOICE BE READY
• SOME THINGS WE CAN IMAGINE
• THE FEVER IN YOUR MIND EVOLVES
• THE CARESS OF THINGS WE THINK
• THINKING WHAT THE NIGHT MIGHT
• THE CONTRARY MIND ARRIVES
• THINKING IS THE DAILY BREATH
• A SLOW RESTRAINT GIVES RISE
• THE MIND EMPTIED OF ITSELF
• FIRST LIGHT IN THE MORNING
• THE MIND IS A STUBBORN EMPTINESS
• THAT THE LAST OF SNOW IS FALLING
• OUR THINKING INHABITS ITS OWN
• THE MIND REFLECTS ON ITS APPETITE
• EVERY THOUGHT IS WELL EXPRESSED
• IMPATIENT MORNING BIRDS LIGHT
• A ROWDY CONFUSION RAINS DOWN
• THE MIND STRIPPED BARE OF ITSELF
• WHAT REMAINS OUTSIDE THE KNOT
• WHAT THE WILFUL HEART KNOWS
• TRYING NOT TO THINK WILL COMFORT
• IN THE MOMENT A THOUGHT FAILS
• THE UNRULY MIND STRAYS INTO
• THE ATTENTIVE MIND DAILY LOOKS
• AS LONG AS THIS PASSING MIND
• WHATEVER ELSE THE MIND MIGHT WISH
• NOTHING WE KNOW RUNS ON AND ON
• IT’S EASY TO FORGET HOW MUCH
• BEING BOTH WISHFUL AND MOSTLY
• INVITED TO REMEMBER ONE THING
• PRIMITIVES OF MEMORY I
• PROPHESY
• SECONDS
• PROTOCOLS
• ASYMMETRICAL
• DISGUISES
• SEPARATIONS
• ANSWERS
• SUCCESSION
• PROPORTIONS
• SATURATION
• HOURS
• PRIMITIVES OF MEMORY II
• SYMMETRICAL
• DAYS
• NEGOTIATION
• EMANATION
• HYMENEAL
• INTIMACY
• LIGHTNING
• QUIET
• GRIEF
• ARRIVAL
• PLANETARY
• PRIMITIVES OF MEMORY III
• CONTINUUM
• CONFLAGRATION
• AFTERLIFE
• CAUSE
• EFFECT
• BEFORE
• AFTER
• CONVERSATION
• UNSPOKEN
• UNSAYABLE
• PERMUTATIONS
• PRIMITIVES OF MEMORY IV
• COMBINATIONS
• ENDURANCE
• AURORA
• COMFORTING
• MULTITUDE
• PATIENCE
• PERIPHERY
• TRAJECTORY
• SLEEPING
• RESONANCE
• FLYING
• PRIMITIVES OF MEMORY V
• TRACE
• CROSSROADS
• QUESTIONS
• SCIENCE
• QUARREL
• SPIRITS
• VOICES
• DESTINATION
• TESTIMONY
• PENTIMENTI
• MINUTES