Here I shall post poems, including some of my own, and stories and anecdotes about the art and craft of this sacred place where the Muses gather as they always have and always will. There may be as well posts related to the theory of this poetry art culled from various sources, scholarly and otherwise. From time to time, there will be posts on short stories, novels and about the writers who graced pages with their wondrous prose.
For the sake of form and function, all works that I post here are copyright © 2008 by doctormate (my pseudonym). Thank you.
I thought it would be well to begin with a poem by Sappho, The Tenth Muse. She was born sometime between 630 an 612 B.C. Sappho was a great Greek "lyrist" who composed lyrical verses to be accompanied by a musical instrument called the lyre. Interestingly, woefully, only one of her complete poems exist, the rest being extant only in fragments ...
I have not had one word from her
Frankly I wish I were dead
When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."
I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love
"If you forget me, think
of our gifts to Aphrodite
and all the loveliness that we shared
"all the violet tiaras,
braided rosebuds, dill and
crocus twined around your young neck
"myrrh poured on your head
and on soft mats girls with
all that they most wished for beside them
"while no voices chanted
choruses without ours,
no woodlot bloomed in spring without song..."
--Translated by Mary Barnard
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