Sappho the Poet

 Greetings,

This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Ha Noi, Vietnam or Southeast Asia. 

I was reading about Alexander the Great, then wandered into central Turkey, remembering the amazing Museum of Archeology in Istanbul where I met Sappho. She whispered, "I am this or am I dreaming?"

Sappho the poet. (ca. 625-570 BC) 

Born on the island of Lesbos. Known as a lyrical poet who developed poetry away from classical adoration of the gods into expression of individual human experience. She wrote mainly love poems with themes addressed to women. The Christian church was not pleased with her erotic verse. Plato referred to Sappho as the "tenth muse."

By Tony Harrison, winner of PEN/Pinter prize.

...Yiannis Ritsos, the great Greek poet whose books were burned before the temple of Zeus in Athens by the Greek colonels, has a poem about the eye of Geo Milev (1895–1925), the Bulgarian poet. Milev had a blue glass eye, and when he was arrested and burned alive by the police, all that was left of him in the crematorium was the blue glass eye. This is from the poem of Ritsos:

His eye is being kept in the Museum

of Revolution

like a seeing stone of the struggle. I

saw his eye.

In his pupil there was the full story

of the Revolution,

blue scenes of blood-stained years

blue scenes with red flags

with dead who carry in their raised

hands a blue day.

His eye never closes,

this eye keeps vigil over Sofia.

This eye is a blue star in the nights.

This eye sees and illuminates and

judges.

Whoever looks at this eye wins back

his eyes.

Whoever looks at this eye sees the

world.

(Translated by Ninetta Makrinikola)

For the moment, while Burma, Iran, China and many other countries monitored by PEN put their poets in prison cells, we put ours in Poets' Corner. I sincerely hope to be spared both."

Metta.

Sappho.