Tom Parrish
All That’s Left is All There is
May 23 - July 12, 2025
193 N Limestone
The Greek poet Sappho (circa 630 to 570 BC) was celebrated both during her life and after. As is well known, all but one of her poems come to us in fragmented bits and pieces. Anne Carson, a modern classical scholar and a poet herself, offers her translations in her book If Not, Winter, 2002. The Kentuckian Guy Davenport, another scholar and writer, gives us his in his book 7 Greeks, 1976. These pictures come from both sources.
Carson and Davenport number their fragments differently. Hers are more generally accepted. I have used them here to identify the images, but there is something to be gained from reading both translators, and they are quoted interchangeably.
Sappho’s world contains a huge cast of characters, not all of which are represented here. But still: demigods, gods, goddesses, hookers, Johns, one of whom is Sappho’s brother, heroes, kings, a butler, a ghost, more than one idiot, brides, grooms, birds, craftspeople, sailors, and especially beautiful young women and men. She is a wedding singer. She is married and has a daughter. Clothes are important to her. She speaks her mind and can be neurotic. She dreads old age. She loves the moon. She does not hesitate to call on Aphrodite to help her with unwilling lovers.
–Tom Parrish