Editing Anne Carson (section)

== Personal life ==
Carson is known to be reticent about her private life, and discourages autobiographical readings of her writings.<ref name="Willard 2011">{{cite book |last1=Willard |first1=Thomas |editor1-last=Canfield Reisman |editor1-first=Rosemary M. |title=Critical Survey of Poetry: British, Irish and Commonwealth Poets |date=2011 |publisher=Salem Press |location=Pasadena, California |isbn=9781587657559 |pages=225–228 |url=https://www.academia.edu/490379 |access-date=26 August 2020 |chapter=Anne Carson |archive-date=17 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517000614/https://www.academia.edu/490379 |url-status=live }}</ref> Information about her in publications is often limited to the phrase: "Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carson |first1=Anne |author-mask=1 |title=Short Talks |date=2015 |publisher=Brick Books Classics |location=London, Ontario |isbn=978-1-77131-342-1}}</ref> While not a confessional poet, her work is considered personal.<ref name="Scranton 2014" /> Carson has said that in her work, she uses her life democratically as just one set of facts among others in the world.<ref name="D'Agata 1997">{{cite journal |last1=Carson |first1=Anne |last2=D'Agata |first2=John |author-link2=John D'Agata |title=A ___ with Anne Carson |journal=The Iowa Review |date=Summer 1997 |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.17077/0021-065X.4868 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Carson's first marriage, during which she used the surname Giacomelli, lasted eight years and ended in 1980.<ref name="LitEncyc" /> This union, and its aftermath, has been claimed as a source for "Kinds of Water" (collected in ''Plainwater''), and for ''[[The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos|The Beauty of the Husband]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Merkin |first1=Daphne |author-link1=Daphne Merkin |title=Last Tango |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/books/last-tango.html |access-date=8 October 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=30 September 2001 |quote=It is always difficult, of course, to gauge how much is autobiographical in a writer's material, and Carson is trickier than most in this regard, but 'Husband' strikes me as being the least cloaked about its origins in lived life. |archive-date=11 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201011120415/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/books/last-tango.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Carson has confirmed that her first husband took her notebooks when they divorced (as happens to the protagonist in ''The Beauty of the Husband''), though later returned them.<ref name="Wachtel 2012">{{cite journal |last1=Carson |first1=Anne |last2=Wachtel |first2=Eleanor |title=An Interview with Anne Carson |journal=Brick: A Literary Journal |date=Summer 2012 |issue=89 |pages=29–47 |url=https://brickmag.com/an-interview-with-anne-carson/ |access-date=23 July 2020 |archive-date=8 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170908224945/https://brickmag.com/an-interview-with-anne-carson/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Carson's father Robert had [[Alzheimer's disease]]. "[[The Glass Essay]]" (collected in ''Glass, Irony, and God''), "Very Narrow" (collected in ''Plainwater''), and "Father's Old Blue Cardigan" (collected in ''[[Men in the Off Hours]]'') all deal with his mental and physical decline.

Carson's mother Margaret (1913–1997) died during the writing of ''Men in the Off Hours''. Carson closed the collection with the prose piece "Appendix to Ordinary Time", using crossed-out phrases from the diaries and manuscripts of [[Virginia Woolf]] to craft an epitaph for her.<ref name="LitEncyc" /> ''[[Red Doc|Red Doc>]]'' has been read as a second elegy for the death of her mother.<ref name="Scranton 2014" /> Carson has described her mother as the love of her life.<ref name="Wachtel 2012" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Carson |first1=Anne |title=Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera |date=2006 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4000-7890-5 |page=5 |chapter=Lines}}</ref>

Carson's brother Michael was arrested for drug dealing in 1978. Jumping bail, he fled Canada and she never saw him again.<ref name="Wachtel 2012" /> Carson dealt with the disappearance of her brother from her life in "Water Margins: An Essay on Swimming by My Brother" (collected in ''Plainwater''), which is written as a kind of memoir.<ref name="Willard 2011" /> In 2000, he called her and they arranged to meet in Copenhagen where he lived, but he died before they could reconnect.<ref name="Sehgal 2011">{{cite news |last1=Carson |first1=Anne |last2=Sehgal |first2=Parul |author-link2=Parul Sehgal |title=Evoking the starry lad her brother was |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/evoking-the-starry-lad-her-brother-was-1.577255 |access-date=10 October 2020 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=19 March 2011 |archive-date=24 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210724045901/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/evoking-the-starry-lad-her-brother-was-1.577255 |url-status=live }}</ref> ''Nox'', an epitaph Carson created for her brother in 2000 and published in 2010, has been described as her most explicitly personal work.<ref name="Scranton 2014" />

Carson is married to the artist Robert Currie, whom she met in [[Ann Arbor]] while teaching at the [[University of Michigan]].<ref name="NYTM 2013" /> She has described Currie as "my collaborator-husband person".<ref name="Cove Park" /> Projects they have worked on together include book designs and performances for ''Nox'' and ''Antigonick''. Carson also refers to Currie as "the Randomizer" during their creative process.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Carson |first1=Anne |last2=Currie |first2=Robert |last3=Berkobien |first3=Megan |author-mask=1 |title=An interview with Anne Carson and Robert Currie |url=https://www.asymptotejournal.com/interview/an-interview-with-anne-carson-and-robert-currie/ |website=Asymptote |access-date=7 October 2020 |date=October 2013 |archive-date=14 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201014005528/https://www.asymptotejournal.com/interview/an-interview-with-anne-carson-and-robert-currie/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

On April 19, 2022, Carson and Currie were granted Icelandic citizenship.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.althingi.is/altext/stjt/2022.019.html | title=Lög um veitingu ríkisborgararéttar | access-date=2022-11-20 | archive-date=2022-11-20 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221120001721/https://www.althingi.is/altext/stjt/2022.019.html | url-status=live }}</ref>

In an article in the ''[[London Review of Books]]'' in August 2024, Carson revealed that she had been diagnosed with [[Parkinson's disease]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Carson |first=Anne |date=2024-08-15 |title=Gloves on! |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n16/anne-carson/gloves-on |access-date=2024-08-11 |work=London Review of Books |language=en |volume=46 |issue=16 |issn=0260-9592}}</ref>