A Vaguely Olympics Related Poetry Day

It was so funny listening to Bob Costas talking about the Greek island of Lesbos tonight on the Olympics broadcast. He totally skipped over the one question that had half of America giggling. i can imagine all the Beavis and Butthead imitations going on in living rooms across the country: "huh-huh... he said lesbos... huh-huh."

Yes, strictly speaking, a lesbian is what you call someone from Lesbos. So how did that word become transformed into a gay moniker? And what does that have to do with poetry day? Read on:

The most famous lesbian of all was the classical Greek poetess Sappho, who lived in the seventh century B.C. She ran a school for girls on Lesbos that was sort of the artistic hippie commune of its day. She was such a revered poet that people called her "the tenth muse."

Sappho wrote a series of beautiful lyric poetry that survives only in fragments. It was written on stone tablets, which broke over the years and many of the pieces are missing. The only thing left of much of Sappho's work is a line here and a line there, leaving only glimpses of some romantic and evocative poetry, now lost forever.

Some of Sappho's poem fragments have been interpreted as evidence that she was indeed a lesbian, in both senses of the word. Thus the modern meaning of "lesbian." Although there is still some dispute about whether Sappho really liked girls or whether it was more of a sisterly thing she was writing about.

Sappho's poems have consistently resisted translation into English in a way that reveals their beauty to the non-Greek speaker. Or so i'm told. i took Latin, not Greek in high school, so i'll just have to take the poetry scholars' word for it.

Mary Barnard's recent translation is very nice, although i'm not sure how faithful it is to the original. Today's poem is an especially pretty translation by Barnard, which seems to be from a more intact fragment.

Yes, Atthis, you may be sure

          Even in Sardis
Anactoria will think often of us
of the life we shared here,

          when you seemed
the Goddess incarnate
to her and your singing
          pleased her best

Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes

precedence over stars around her;
her light spreads equally
on the salt sea and fields thick with bloom

Delicious dew pours down to freshen
roses, delicate thyme,
and blossoming sweet clover; she wanders

aimlessly, thinking of gentle
Atthis, her heart hanging
heavy with longing in her little breast

She shouts aloud, Come! we know it;
thousand-eared night repeats that cry
across the sea shining between us

i think it's appropriate that this week's poem is a selection from Sappho, in honor of the Olympic Games in general and a couple of American gold medalists in particular who, perhaps unintentionally, paid homage to the spirit of Sappho the other night.

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Wednesday Is Poetry Day

Here is a lovely, alliterative, difficult, and very spiritual poem by one-time Golden Bear, Archibald Randolph Ammons.

The City Limits

When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold
itself but pours its abundance without selection into every
nook and cranny not overhung or hidden; when you consider

that birds' bones make no awful noise against the light but
lie low in the light as in a high testimony; when you consider
the radiance, that it will look into the guiltiest

swervings of the weaving heart and bear itself upon them,
not flinching into disguise or darkening; when you consider
the abundance of such resource as illuminates the glow-blue

bodies and gold-skeined wings of flies swarming the dumped
guts of a natural slaughter or the coil of shit and in no
way winces from its storms of generosity; when you consider

that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take, then
the heart moves roomier, the man stands and looks about, the

leaf does not increase itself above the grass, and the dark
work of the deepest cells is of a tune with May bushes
and fear lit by the breadth of such calmly turns to praise.

i had to read this one a bunch of times before i "got" it. Until i did, the beauty of the rhythm and alliteration kept me going back. Notice the scientific metaphors. Ammons had a chemistry degree from Wake Forest and his interest in science is obvious in this poem. He also studied English Literature at Cal Berkeley as a grad student, although i do not think he earned a degree.

This poem's message is definitely spiritual and contemplative. Whether it's also a religious metaphor is up to the reader. For me it is, but i can just as easily see how it wouldn't be for some.

Here's a short bio of the poet, who died in February, 2001.

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Wednesday Is Poetry Day

In keeping with today's football related theme, i want to share a pretty cool website i discovered. It's called Football Poets, and it deals with that other football, which Americans call soccer, and which i call kickball.

i may sometimes deride soccer fan, but it's an uncomfortable truth that your average hooligan has a lot in common with your stereotypical Raider fan.

Read the following poem, by a poet named simply, Glenn. Tell me if it doesn't remind you of any beloved black hole dwellers you know.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

He wakes up to the siren of the clock beside his bed,
He rubs his eyes and starts to feel the banging in his head,
It's 8 o'clock on Sunday morn, he's only had five hours,
But he mustn't let his mates down so he summons up his powers.

He drinks a litre of diet coke to ease the dehydration,
Then sets off down to meet his mates at the petrol station,
His lift turns up and they all pile in, squashed and jammed up tight,
The car is filled with smells of beer and curry from last night.

He shouts and swears with all his mates as they change in a cold, damp room,
The boisterousness holds no bounds, it's Sunday in the tomb,
He strides out through the mist that hugs the rutted council pitch,
Up to the centre circle, hand down shorts, attending to the itch.

He tentatively shakes the hand of his foe in black and red,
Then shouts 'tails' as the tarnished coin spins above his head,
He runs, he kicks, he hurts, he spits, his vitriol unchecked,
He courts displeasure of the man, who is in black bedecked.

He leaves the battered field of play, threatening retribution,
Knowing, deep down inside, his worthless contribution,
And afterwards in the bar he's pompous, rude and haughty,
'Cos this is Sunday football and tomorrow he is forty.

He knows his days of mud and blood are nearly at an end,
The paunch that sits upon his belt is now his new best friend,
He'll fill him up with pie and ale until he's fit to burst,
But he will go on drinking to satisfy his thirst.

He staggers off the bus and somehow opens the front door,
He slumps down in the armchair and sleeps three hours or more,
He wakes up to the siren of the ambulance outside
Then cries as he realises, that Sunday football had just died.

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Poetry Wednesday

A quick one today, 'cause i'm very busy. Today's selection was written by the 19th century American poet Richard Watson Gilder. i thought it was kinda amusing.

A Woman's Thought

I am a woman—therefore I may not
Call to him, cry to him,
Fly to him,
Bid him delay not!

Then when he comes to me, I must sit quiet;
Still as a stone—
All silent and cold.
If my heart riot—
Crush and defy it!
Should I grow bold,
Say one dear thing to him,
All my life fling to him,
Cling to him—
What to atone
Is enough for my sinning!
This were the cost to me,
This were my winning—
That he were lost to me.

Not as a lover
At last if he part from me,
Tearing my heart from me,
Hurt beyond cure—
Calm and demure
Then must I hold me,
In myself fold me,
Lest he discover;
Showing no sign to him
By look of mine to him
What he has been to me—
How my heart turns to him,
Follows him, yearns to him,
Prays him to love me.

Pity me, lean to me,
Thou God above me!

It's obvious that was written by a man. Sheesh.

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