'I have been told that Sappho was a woman, and that Plato and Aristotle placed her with Homer and Archilocus among the greatest of their poets'. (Virginia Woolf)
I look forward to following your work. I think the 'work in progress' pieces already encourage a gap-filling exercise. And then it gets really exciting when one reads the description of your process, how the gaps were eventually filled, and why. The fact that you recounted the process verbally added another opportunity for the audience to engage in meaning-making.
thank you for this beautiful post. i haven't read Sappho for decades, its great to read those beautiful fragments again. and the art!!! are those paintings yours? exquisite!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read some of my writing! So glad the poems brought something back. The paintings are mine but I am no painter, I just mess around sometimes but when I do, I really enjoy it :)
‘This is not only true of poetry reading: it happens also when we read a comic: we ‘fill’ the space (called ‘gutter’) that separates panels in a graphic novel by ‘imagining’ the meaningful transition between them. It also happens when we bridge the silence between acts in a play’ !!! That’s beautiful, and so true. Your writing always make me re-appreciate art.
I know that feeling of having things you want to write but not knowing how to string them all together too well 😂 and of getting absorbed in literature!! Loving the Greek vocabulary I’m learning from your posts, I’ve actually started doing a bit of studying around the Greeks, have you maybe read Lysistrata? I’m about to read that one and I admit I’m pretty excited about it.
P.S. life always just gets in the way of writing, just when you sit down you realise you left the kettle on! Thankyou so much for the Virginia Woolf essay :) will read.
I have been starving for your posts for two weeks!! Will read this tonight when I can take it all in :)) I haven’t got around to reading Virginia Woolf yet, every time I have time to go to the library it’s been closed but my desire to read her is only growing
I have been desperate to finish this one but too much got in the way :(
You can read Woolf's London essay 'Street Haunting' here - it's not the same as a book but it's a start, and being just an essay, it doesn't feel too wrong to read it digitally:
I hope I don't sound completely obsessed in this post, it's just been one of those topics I've been meaning to write about. I would have written a lot more about the book 'After Sappho' but I risk sounding like an advertising campaign :D
My next post will be about art and climate (I hope). Liable to get distracted by other topics as soon as I start something.
I'm so glad you liked it! And it's very true about dreams - the fluency and complexity they have somehow just doesn't translate when recounted. Maybe we don't even remember all the details we feel we might remember (?). Maybe visual language simply has more capacity than verbal language. I often wonder about this.
Gap-filling!!! What a fantastic newsletter! I confess I had to look up words and really pause and think about quite a few concepts you successfully poked into my illiterate brain. 😝 This is a letter I shall read again, possibly out loud to my husband. For starts this idea of filling in gaps really got me thinking. I’m thinking this is what happens when we dream for one, when our imagination has taken over the reigns from our analytical thoughts which seems to try to organize the world concretely. I always think I experience a full movie but when I wake up to tell my husband about it, it is reduced to one or two sentences. Then I relate this concept to painting. When we don’t fill in all the information smoothly allowing gaps in objects the viewer participates in filling in the rest making the picture a lot more active. I’m working on this concept in my own work but have a ways to go with its execution. But your newsletter gave me renewed interest in achieving this more fully! Loved reading this! Thanks!
I look forward to following your work. I think the 'work in progress' pieces already encourage a gap-filling exercise. And then it gets really exciting when one reads the description of your process, how the gaps were eventually filled, and why. The fact that you recounted the process verbally added another opportunity for the audience to engage in meaning-making.
My favourite line of the day: "the amniotic fluid of poetic syntax." ❤️❤️❤️
Aw, was hoping someone would like that one 🥰 thank you xx
Agreed! What a genius combination of words and a brilliant article!
thank you for this beautiful post. i haven't read Sappho for decades, its great to read those beautiful fragments again. and the art!!! are those paintings yours? exquisite!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read some of my writing! So glad the poems brought something back. The paintings are mine but I am no painter, I just mess around sometimes but when I do, I really enjoy it :)
I beg to differ. the paintings are beautiful. i was entranced by them. Keep painting!
Thank you so much! This is incredible feedback, it means so much. xx
‘This is not only true of poetry reading: it happens also when we read a comic: we ‘fill’ the space (called ‘gutter’) that separates panels in a graphic novel by ‘imagining’ the meaningful transition between them. It also happens when we bridge the silence between acts in a play’ !!! That’s beautiful, and so true. Your writing always make me re-appreciate art.
I know that feeling of having things you want to write but not knowing how to string them all together too well 😂 and of getting absorbed in literature!! Loving the Greek vocabulary I’m learning from your posts, I’ve actually started doing a bit of studying around the Greeks, have you maybe read Lysistrata? I’m about to read that one and I admit I’m pretty excited about it.
P.S. life always just gets in the way of writing, just when you sit down you realise you left the kettle on! Thankyou so much for the Virginia Woolf essay :) will read.
I have been starving for your posts for two weeks!! Will read this tonight when I can take it all in :)) I haven’t got around to reading Virginia Woolf yet, every time I have time to go to the library it’s been closed but my desire to read her is only growing
Thank you so much, your words made me very happy!
I have been desperate to finish this one but too much got in the way :(
You can read Woolf's London essay 'Street Haunting' here - it's not the same as a book but it's a start, and being just an essay, it doesn't feel too wrong to read it digitally:
https://talkcurriculum.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/woolf_virginia_1927_street_haunting.pdf
Apparently she called her cat 'Sappho'.
I hope I don't sound completely obsessed in this post, it's just been one of those topics I've been meaning to write about. I would have written a lot more about the book 'After Sappho' but I risk sounding like an advertising campaign :D
My next post will be about art and climate (I hope). Liable to get distracted by other topics as soon as I start something.
I'm so glad you liked it! And it's very true about dreams - the fluency and complexity they have somehow just doesn't translate when recounted. Maybe we don't even remember all the details we feel we might remember (?). Maybe visual language simply has more capacity than verbal language. I often wonder about this.
Gap-filling!!! What a fantastic newsletter! I confess I had to look up words and really pause and think about quite a few concepts you successfully poked into my illiterate brain. 😝 This is a letter I shall read again, possibly out loud to my husband. For starts this idea of filling in gaps really got me thinking. I’m thinking this is what happens when we dream for one, when our imagination has taken over the reigns from our analytical thoughts which seems to try to organize the world concretely. I always think I experience a full movie but when I wake up to tell my husband about it, it is reduced to one or two sentences. Then I relate this concept to painting. When we don’t fill in all the information smoothly allowing gaps in objects the viewer participates in filling in the rest making the picture a lot more active. I’m working on this concept in my own work but have a ways to go with its execution. But your newsletter gave me renewed interest in achieving this more fully! Loved reading this! Thanks!