Born in Toronto, Canada, Anne Carson (1950—) is a classics scholar as well as a poet. A translator of the Greek poetess Sappho, she has taught at universities at home and in the United States. Her prize-winning poetry—which features knowledge culled from a variety of discourses and achieves its often spectacular effects by mixing prose with verse—is both experimental and emotionally fraught. Men in the Off Hours, from 2001, brought her a wider audience, while her latest work, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera, extended her reputation as an innovator.