Opera Et Cetera

Opera et cetera: Torqueing and tuning his long lines in this new volume to the demands of rhyme, Carson skitters from Northern Ireland to Romania to the "twin volcanoes - Balalaika, Karaoke," from the Irish language to the Latin roots of English. In the opening series of alphabet poems, Carson turns the synchronic ABC's into isolable histories, miniature mysteries that, in sequence, compose a sinister, narrative trajectory, one that may not arrive at an ending, or that may conclude by questioning its beginnings.