Anne Carson is an internationally acclaimed poet and scholar of classical Greek. Her work is an illustration of the way in which a second language and tradition can nourish the writing process. Translation is principle and method in her work. In composing many of her poems, Carson flips back and forth between English and Classical Greek. But her aim is neither ethnographic nor philological: her work is a relentless confrontation of past and present, erudition and emotion, producing 'dazzling hybrids'. To speak of such a work is to contribute to developing a vocabulary in Translation Studies that acknowledges the continuum of writing practices enabled by translation.