James Wright: Sappho
Fire does not rest on iron, it drifts like a blue blossom
And catches on my breath;
Coiling, spinning, the blue foam of the gas fire
Writhes like a naked girl
Emma Grover: Finding Sappho | Four translations in conversation
In this article, I review four translations of Sappho produced over the past six decades.
Amy Lowell: The Broken Fountain
All day I have watched the purple vine leaves
Fall into the water.
And now in the moonlight they still fall,
But each leaf is fringed with silver.
Majid Naficy: Escape to Lesbos
In Ma’arra, the poet Abul ‘Ala
Was called a death-worthy infidel
And a thousand years after his death
His statue was beheaded.
Sappho: Fragments, on Love and Desire
Like the sweet-apple reddening high on the branch,
High on the highest, the apple-pickers forgot,
Or not forgotten, but one they couldn’t reach…
Deborah Bogen: Risk
In Sappho, the spaces name nothing — but the emptiness still speaks.
Elsa Gidlow: I Come With My Songs
An excerpt from Elsa Gidlow’s autobiography: . . . that house on Redwood Road in Fairfax, Marin County, became mine by the Winter Solstice of 1940. I called it “Madrona”. … Continue reading
