contemporary foil/parallel read for Sappho's poetry?

[serendipitous journey]

I'd like to run a contemporary poet in parallel with the ancient ones.  Currently my 10th-grader is reading Sappho (Barnard translation; I plan to pick up Carson's at the library this week for another view). 

Thoughts?  He's not a poetry lover; I want something that makes sense as a foil to Sappho & will engage him.  I'm thinking of "10 Poems to Change Your Life" which is an anthology and not the work of one poet, but covers a range of topics and is approachable. 

Thanks!

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, serendipitous journey said:

I'd like to run a contemporary poet in parallel with the ancient ones.  Currently my 10th-grader is reading Sappho (Barnard translation; I plan to pick up Carson's at the library this week for another view). 

Thoughts?  He's not a poetry lover; I want something that makes sense as a foil to Sappho & will engage him.  I'm thinking of "10 Poems to Change Your Life" which is an anthology and not the work of one poet, but covers a range of topics and is approachable. 

Thanks!

No suggestions just think it’s a cool offering/course.

[Farrar]

Mary Oliver wouldn't be a bad choice, I think. She's in that collection.

[Miss Tick]

Are you familiar with Billy Collins? Many of his poems "make sense" and quite a few use humor. I'm not sure how easily you could find complimentary poems to Sappho's, but if you are just looking for another window into poetry, perhaps?

Here is his "Introduction to Poetry"

My favorite of his is Etymology. I can't find a link, so here goes:

They call Basque an orphan language

Linguists do not know

What other languages have it birth.

 

From the high window of the orphanage

It watches English walking alone to the cemetery

To visit the graves of is parents.

English and Anglo-Saxon.

 

Another interesting poet to consider might be Wallace Stevens. He is a modernist poet, not easy to "get" but a lot to consider if that is a motivator. The Snow Man (one long sentence), The Emperor of Ice Cream, and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird are his best known.

Perhaps you are looking for a more contemporary poet, though, maybe someone not white and male?

[serendipitous journey]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

Mary Oliver wouldn't be a bad choice, I think. She's in that collection.

Agreed.  Would you tend to prefer a book of Mary Oliver over the collection? 

In case it's useful: we've been off our poetry studies since, more-or-less, the beginning of Covid.  With the exception of Kipling -- we did a term of Kipling + Social Commentary when we studied Early Moderns.  Before that he had poetry reading & some writing a la "Wishes, Lies and Dreams." 

Edited July 10, 2022 by serendipitous journey

[serendipitous journey]

20 minutes ago, SusanC said:

Are you familiar with Billy Collins? Many of his poems "make sense" and quite a few use humor. I'm not sure how easily you could find complimentary poems to Sappho's, but if you are just looking for another window into poetry, perhaps?

....

 

Another interesting poet to consider might be Wallace Stevens. He is a modernist poet, not easy to "get" but a lot to consider if that is a motivator. The Snow Man (one long sentence), The Emperor of Ice Cream, and Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird are his best known.

Perhaps you are looking for a more contemporary poet, though, maybe someone not white and male?

I'm okay with white & male at any given time, so long as we mix it up over the course of our studies. 

Billy Collins did NOT go over well here 🤣; we read through his Whale Day. 

Wallace Stevens: hadn't come across him, the poems you attached are amazing & worthwhile.  I think he'd sit much better than Billy Collins.  Is there a particular anthology or collection of his you'd recommend? 

Edited July 10, 2022 by serendipitous journey

[serendipitous journey]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

No suggestions just think it’s a cool offering/course.

Thanks so much.  🙂  Those kind, encouraging words mean a lot. 

[Farrar]

I was thinking about this a little more. If I was going to do Mary Oliver, I'd do a collection of her stuff. She has several. I like the idea of Mary Oliver because they're both women and I think a lot of Oliver's poems are simple but hit big themes, which is something I think of with what Sappho I've read. One thing I think that doesn't quite fit is that Oliver is known for her nature poetry, and that's not exactly what I associate Sappho with. She wrote a lot more love poems.

Another possible name does occur to me. What about pairing Sappho with Audre Lorde? That way you could hardcore hit on the idea of poetry as an outsider, as a woman, as a lesbian. Of course, you do run into the same issue as with Oliver that Lorde - while she may have written about love, isn't really a romantic poet - she's more associated with political poetry. And her style may not pair as well with Sappho. I think of both Sappho and Oliver as using simple imagery.

But I honestly can't think of a contemporary poet who is super focused on love poetry. That could be my limitations - I enjoy poetry, but I'm not a poetry connoisseur by any means. Others may know a lot more. But if I was going to do a poetry collection to go with Sappho, I'd just do a modern love poetry collection. There are a bunch out there. Then you could dive down on a lot of thinking about themes and how they evolve and you could do it with a lot of diverse voices and styles.

[serendipitous journey]

Yeah, finding a good foil is weird with Sappho + 10th grade.  Because the extant poetry from Sappho is very much Aphrodite-love-poetry -- love-as-desire poetry.  Not so much lasting love, or love over years, by my read at least.   So it can be awkward, a bit at least, plus our general life approach is to not spend a great deal of time obsessing over objects of desire that are ever-changing & unobtainable and/or distant. 

That said, I find Sappho worth reading.  But she's a hard sell to the 10th-grader.  Just have to take it poem by poem, I guess.

Anyhow: a modern love poetry collection might be a good foil: thanks for that lead, I'll follow through with it and see what I rustle up. 

Edited July 10, 2022 by serendipitous journey

[serendipitous journey]

37 minutes ago, Farrar said:

But if I was going to do a poetry collection to go with Sappho, I'd just do a modern love poetry collection. There are a bunch out there. Then you could dive down on a lot of thinking about themes and how they evolve and you could do it with a lot of diverse voices and styles.

You know, I'd not have looked for one without your prompting, but I think I can find love poems selected by Imtiaz Dharker and her choices look just the thing: a range of themes, as you say, and diverse voices & styles.  Thanks for pushing me out of my comfort zone!!

Edited July 10, 2022 by serendipitous journey

[royspeed]

serendipitous:

Have you considered May Sarton? — Here's a sample:

A Durable Fire

For steadfast flame, wood must be seasoned,
And if love can be trusted to last out,
Then it must first be disciplined and seasoned
To take all weathers, absences, and doubt.
No resinous pine for this, but the hard oak
Slow to catch fire, would see us through a year.
We learned to temper words before we spoke,
To force the Furies back, learned to forbear,
In silence to wait out erratic storm,
And bury tumult when we were apart.
The fires were banked to keep a winter warm
With heart of oak instead of resinous heart,
And in this testing year beyond desire,
Began to move toward durable fire.

[kokotg]

H.D. would be the obvious one, I think, since she was heavily influenced by Sappho. And really most any of the modernist poets would give you a chance to talk about fragmentation, translation, etc. 

[regentrude]

Wat about Anne Carson? She has translated Sappho, so there is an obvious connection.

[regentrude]

What does "foil" mean to you in this context? Which commonality between Sappho and the contemporary poet are you seeking to highlight? I would first identify what the common factor should be and then go from there.
The poems in the anthology you have chosen re certainly worth reading, but I don't immediately grasp what they have to do with Sappho and why this particular pairing makes sense.

Edited July 11, 2022 by regentrude

[serendipitous journey]

On 7/10/2022 at 4:33 PM, royspeed said:

serendipitous:

Have you considered May Sarton? — Here's a sample:

 

No, I hadn't & hadn't known of her work.  The poem you selected is a rich one; I'll look for more of her work.  Thank you!

[serendipitous journey]

On 7/10/2022 at 5:49 PM, kokotg said:

H.D. would be the obvious one, I think, since she was heavily influenced by Sappho. And really most any of the modernist poets would give you a chance to talk about fragmentation, translation, etc. 

What a gorgeous suggestion.  And there is a generous amount of H.D.'s work that tells ancient myths, leveraging our other ancient readings. 

[serendipitous journey]

On 7/11/2022 at 11:42 AM, regentrude said:

What does "foil" mean to you in this context? Which commonality between Sappho and the contemporary poet are you seeking to highlight? I would first identify what the common factor should be and then go from there.
The poems in the anthology you have chosen re certainly worth reading, but I don't immediately grasp what they have to do with Sappho and why this particular pairing makes sense.

Good questions.  By "foil" I was thinking just of anything that provided a fairly clear & interesting point of comparison. 
 

The anthology idea came about from @Farrar's suggestion:

"But if I was going to do a poetry collection to go with Sappho, I'd just do a modern love poetry collection. There are a bunch out there. Then you could dive down on a lot of thinking about themes and how they evolve and you could do it with a lot of diverse voices and styles. "

Which gave me hope that a wide anthology of good poems on a similar subject might provide my child with the chance to find something he relates to or, at least, is interested in.

The "love" theme is the tie-in.  The variety of approaches to love, and interpretations of the idea, seem germane in this case where nearly everything we have by Sappho is poetry of desire because her other work was lost.  So part of me is thinking that narrowing of Sappho's oeuvre is balanced by the wide range of voices in the anthology. 

I also am happy to have work by diverse authors to augment the Western-male-centric nature of the bulk of our studies.   Sometimes we home in on one particular author (Langston Hughes is a favorite) but here, again, for a few reasons the multitude of poets is appealing.  

Edited July 27, 2022 by serendipitous journey

[Lori D.]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Not "current contemporary" -- she was writing in the mid/late 19th century -- but certainly closer to 21st century than Sappho's early BC time period. 😉 

Similarities include:
- subject matter (love poems)
- written by women
- short (Sappho = 650 existent lines, Browning = 44 sonnets (each in the 14-line sonnet format)

Differences include:
- time frame (mid-1800sAD vs. BC)
- form (highly structured sonnets vs. lyric ancient poetry)


Perhaps also excerpts from Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing -- 13th century male Persian Sufi mystic and poet; poems range from romantic to religious

Edited July 29, 2022 by Lori D.

[LauraBeth475]

On 7/10/2022 at 2:40 PM, Farrar said:

Mary Oliver wouldn't be a bad choice, I think. She's in that collection.

That's who I was going to suggest

[serendipitous journey]

On 8/24/2022 at 6:02 PM, LauraBeth475 said:

That's who I was going to suggest

You know, she'd fallen off my radar.  I'm glad you brought her to mind; maybe for the Sappho foil, and definitely for our general homeschool poetry reading -- I just ordered her "Dog Songs" which will make our poetry kick-off fun for everybody.