Anne Carson -- McGill classics professor by day, poet by night -- recently won the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

The award fetched the poet $500,000 U.S. and she counts Susan Sontag, Michael Ondaatje and Harold Bloom as fervent fans. This kind of adulation got me interested in tracking Carson's canon. She's written six volumes of poetry and essays, frequently employs labyrinthine literary allusions, and cites from sources which span the test of time. In Men in the Off Hours (her most recent publication) Lazarus, Thucydides and Catherine Deneuve make an appearance.

For those of you curious to sample some of Carson's heady poetry, here are some cool links with some online readings:

Fan site including the text of Apostle Town and other poems by Anne Carson.
Random House page with more on Carson's latest poetry, and a portion of "Irony Is Not Enough: Essay On My Life as Catherine Deneuve (2nd draft)"
Eros the Bittersweet
A book about love as seen by the ancients.
Brick Books has more on the Carson backlist -- go buy some poetry.
McGill Alumni newsletter with an essay on Canadian poetry, including biographical info on Carson and her previous awards.

One Week To Go
Fans of Italian Mannerist Art have another week before the close of Italian Mannerist Drawings at the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. The Mannerist movement dominated Italian art for most of the 16th century. The National is showing pieces from some of the most accomplished artists of this period such as Bandinelli, Vasari and Parmigianino.

Italian Mannerist Drawings
National Gallery of Canada
until Jun. 26 - Ottawa
(613) 990-1985

Fine Tuning
As the world gears up for Gay Pride this weekend, CBC is standing proud for queers of every colour with a week-long movie feast entitled Outfest.

The film fest kicks off tonight with Hollow Reed, a British psychological thriller about "a divorced doctor who is gay and suspects his son is being abused by his ex-wife's boyfriend. The doctor petitions for custody." Leonard Maltin gives the flick a thumbs up, claiming that it's a taut little nail nipper as well as being a "no holds-barred indictment of homophobia." It stars Martin Donovan and Joely Richardson. That's at midnight tonight on CBC-TV.

Drop me a line.