on words in two translations of sappho

The Poetry of Sappho, translated by Willis Barnstone and Anne Carson

These two volumes actually cover the same expanse of work by Sappho (namely all of it that is left), but they have very different approaches. Whereas Carson emphasizes the fragmentary nature of the surviving texts by structuring them on the page with their missing lines displayed as blank space, Barnestone writes out each piece as if it had been completed, as if Sappho had structured them the way that we have them now. Both are important for my poetics. I cannot think of a poet who has inspired me more than Sappho. Fragments have a power that so called “complete” poems do not. Their words hang in the air, and you are forced to think about their language from every conceivable direction and angle. Take Sappho fragment six, as translated by Anne Carson for example:

“Go

so we may see

lady

of gold arms

doom” 

Each word lives within itself as well as within the poem. Each word must be digested by the reader on its own. What does “doom” mean here? Is the lady of gold arms doom incarnate? Does she foretell some kind of impending doom? There are possibilities in each word and line, which is something I actively try to bring over to my own work.  When a word is by itself, but still in a larger context endless possibilities spring up. 

excerpt from a letter

"[...] I must disagree with you that one does not turn to modern poets and/or poetry for theory. That the merits of poetry are in its craft rather than in its philosophy, and that a poet can “fail” at being a poet while succeeding at being a philosopher. A poet and a philosopher are two sides of the same coin, one cannot fail to be one and succeed at being the other. A poem approached merely by its “rules and traditions and the like” is dead. It is a flat surface, a mathematical equation with no lifeblood. This approach is born of the “fear of poetry” which Muriel Rukeyser talks about. We feel that if we can approach poetry in a cold, detached, and scientific manner it won’t threaten us quite so much. Perhaps this is true, but it does a major disservice to poetry and to ourselves. We are capable of being “amateur philosophers” and it is that capability which poetry seeks to bring out in each of us. The ability to question on a philosophical level is desperately needed in times like ours… and poetry is the mechanism though which we can begin to do this… if we will allow it."

n