On Anne Carson’s “Wrong Norma”

Something is rotten in the state of contemporary literature. You can smell it from a mile off—in the Poetry Foundation’s censorship of a review that espoused anti-Zionist views; in the Frankfurt Book Fair rescinding the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli’s award for her novel Minor Detail; in PEN America’s muted response to the ongoing genocide; in the canceled events for writers who have publicly criticized Israel. Reactions to such rottenness have ranged from open letters to resignations, prompting the age-old question: What is the role of art and artists in times of unrelenting political emergency?