Notes from Source: Abstract“Tongues of glaciers” explores the creative collaboration of visual artist Roni Horn and poet Anne Carson around Horn’s acclaimed Vatnasafn/Library of Water (2007), an installation sited in a former community library in western Iceland. In twenty-four floor-to-ceiling transparent glass columns, Horn displays and archives water in which the telluric and linguistic sediment of glaciers has been deposited. Carson and her husband, Robert Currie, wrote the poem “Wildly Constant” here when Carson was writer in residence in 2009. A homage to and meditation on the Library of Water that reverberates through many other poetic and creative collaborations in subsequent years — including musical performances — the poem is the occasion for an examination of the complex, generative interplay of word and image. The authors’ analysis details the intricate formal interweaving of poem and visual artwork, the inspirations and reference points for both artforms — including the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Anna Freud, Marcel Proust, and especially earth artist Robert Smithson’s essays. Their reading of Horn’s and Carson’s works seeks to understand their extended conception of “writing” and “drawing,” the vagaries of gender, and the ecology of water.

Further Notes: Publisher: Routledge

Further Notes:

Most of Anne Carson’s publications are mentioned in this article, but are not the main subject.