The Blog of Awesome Women/ SAPPHO: THE LITERATI OF LESBOS

Lyric poet Sappho is universally regarded as the greatest
ancient poet. She came to be known as the “tenth
muse.” Although scholars can’t agree whether Homer
even existed or not, Sappho’s work was recorded and
preserved by other writers. An unfortunate destruction of
a volume of all her work—nine books of lyric poetry and
one of elegiac verse—occurred in the early Middle Ages,
engendering a search for her writing that continues even
now. The Catholic Church deemed her work to be far too
erotic and obscene, so they burned the volume containing
her complete body of work, thus erasing what could only
be some of the finest poetry in all of herstory. Known
for her powerful phrasing and the intensity of feeling,
erotic and otherwise, Sappho’s poetry is immediate and
accessible to the reader. Upon reading Sappho, you can
feel that you know her, her ecstatic highs as well as the
depth of her pain and longings.

Sappho is believed to have been married to a wealthy man
from the island of Andros, and she had one daughter.
She taught at a small college for women and was also an
athlete. One haiku-like fragment reports that she “taught
poetry to Hero, a girl athlete from the island of Gyra.”
She was banished to Sicily for some time, but the majority
of her life was lived on the island of Lesbos. Much of her
work, her most lustful in fact, is written to other women,
whom she exalts for their beauty, often achieving a poetic
frenzy of desire. She also writes for her brother Charaxus
and makes the occasional reference to the political arena of
the ancient world she inhabited. Although Sappho is one of
the earliest and best known poets of either gender, she is
actually regarded, stylistically, as the first modern poet

To Atthis
Though in Sardis now,
she thinks of us constantly
and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave deep joy.
Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all
stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields
lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus
Often while she wanders she remembers you,
gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart
for us to come.

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