Antigonick is the newest book by the poet Anne Carson, and like Nox, the exquisite accordion book released by New Directions in 2010, it presents a new way of thinking about the book as a literary and artistic media. A collaboration with illustrator Bianca Stone, Carson’s former student, and designer Robert Currie, who is credited as assisting with the design of Nox, Antigonick is an unconventional translation of Antigone, Sophocles’ tragedy about the willful, intractable girl who transgresses against her uncle the King of Thebes’ royal decree by burying her dead brother, a political traitor, according to the divine rites. The text is hand-lettered by Carson in black and red ink, and the color illustrations (they look like watercolor and ink, but the media isn’t recorded) are printed on vellum so that they overlay the text. The visual motif of a spool of thread runs through Stone’s illustrations, and like the thread the images are placed so they can get tangled up with the text. It’s a brave and interesting project, but one that, in spite of Carson’s fiercely intelligent creative instincts, doesn’t actually hold together.
