Rose-hearted Sappho, long-uprooted poet,
Come to us chanting, Diva of the Muses!
I, Aphrodite, reigned through your oration.
Who could refuse you?

Honey-tongued Sappho, sing again of passion!
Praising the goddess, break our hearts with beauty!
Honoring men     and cherishing the women . . .
Our sacred duty.

Island of Lesbos, glittering in the moon-sea
Here celebrating libertine traditions,
Lovers await your touch     of pen to paper
Art’s intuitions.

Rose petals fade, but all can be immortal
Through our beliefs, our hopes, and our creations.
Hear me, O Sappho!    Voice that sways the night stars!
Love shall be our purpose,     and you,

Our inspiration.

James:  Possibly the greatest poet that ever lived, I consider Sappho the “Lilith of Poets”.  Being gay and talented as she was no doubt worked against her, the more the dominator system became entrenched.  Amazingly, the only complete poem of hers that survives is “Ode to Aphrodite”.  Now, we get to return the favor.  To our knowledge, Venus has never been portrayed loving women, yet, being the Goddess of Sensual Love, she could easily fit into this scene:  Venus sharing her love with an initiate of Sappho’s, rejuvenating the Great Poetess to write again.  Sappho, whom I painted purple, looks very attractive in the moonlight.  I like my jewelry design for her - a double feminine sign.

Becca:  Sappho, a 7th century BC poet and priestess of the goddess religion, was a cultural icon in her day.  Some Western historians regard her as the first person to conceptualize herself as an individual – in other words, the concept of “I”, as spoken in her poem “The Fairest Thing is One I Love”. [“Monograph – Remembering the Future”, http://www.eternitymedicine.com/english/03_eternity_medicine/mongraph_remebering%20the%20future.htm]. 

     As a lover of women, Sappho attracted many women to study and live at her “Home of the Muses” on the Greek island of Lesbos;  hence the modern terms lesbianism and sapphism for female homosexuality.  Her fame garnered her the eventual burning of her books, so we have only a small part of her life’s work.  Says HB Cotterill in his scholarly work, Ancient Greece, “Even the fragments that remain of her nine books of poems allow us to accept without hesitation the judgment of ancient critics, who were unanimous in their almost reverential admiration.”  Plato referred to her as “the Tenth Muse” two hundred years after her death.  

     My study of her poetry inspired me so much I wanted to write my own tribute to her,  alongside the painting James had done in her honor.  As Sappho had once written an “Ode to Aphrodite”, I, through Venus’ voice, wrote a companion “Ode to Sappho”.   I got a feel for the ancient ode form, addressing Sappho directly, expressing invocation, gratitude, and then petitioning for her help.  I knew Sappho expressed herself in a clean style and with emotional intensity.  Reading translations of her writing, I imagined them in Greek, a language I had once spoken and still had a sense for.  I knew she had invented a verse form – Sapphic meter – and called Vincent, “our man in New York” to get me an example of it in English, which he routed out and faxed to me in Puerto Rico.  (This was before the day when Google put vast information at our fingertips).  Sapphic form is a quatrain (four-line stanza):  the first three lines of 11 syllables in tetrameter (dactyl-trochee-tractyl-trochee), and the fourth line of 5 syllables in dimeter (dactyl-trochee).  Once the rhythm was running around in my head, I sat down to meditate, inviting the spirit of Sappho to speak through me.

     Immersed as I was in the aura of a great poet, the writing came joyfully out of me.  “Ode to Sappho” is, to date, the most technically demanding poem I have ever written.  Due to the constrictions of form, I had to find and place each word exactly.  It is my humble intention that “Ode to Sappho”  pay tribute to a great woman writer.

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