This is a reaction I typed up after reading a collection of the poetry of Sappho. I finished reading this back in May of 2021. I’m going back and adding these sorts of reactions to the “book jots” section of the website. I thought I’d throw it up as a post, too, even though it’s over a year old.

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I just finished reading Sappho: A New Translation (1958), a collection of poems and fragments written by the Greek lyric poet Sappho and translated with an afterword and notes by Mary Barnard. Dudley Fitts wrote the foreword.

This is a fantastic book! I really enjoyed it, and imagine it is a book I will return to again and again. Sappho’s poetry is marked by beautiful simplicity and supple imagery. Her writing provokes a response in me similar to the experience of reading the poetry of Archilochus. Both were Greek lyrical poets, whose births were separated by about 50 years and 160 miles of the Aegean Sea. However, it also reminds me of the way I feel when reading the poetry of Matsuo Basho, the 17th century Japanese poet; so, time, place, and form aren’t the only reasons for this similarity.

Like Archilochus, most of what remains of Sappho’s poetry is fragmentary. Sometimes these incomplete pieces feel whole in and of themselves, while other times their fragmentary nature adds an enigmatic intensity.

I thought the translation was excellent, and also appreciated the supplementary information provided in the foreword, afterword, and notes.

…in meadows where horses have grown sleek among spring flowers, dill scents the air.