Homer must have felt this pressure to come up with an epic poem that would sound totally new to an audience that had loved his previous best-seller.

Everything depends on liking the people and trusting the people. You have to assume that whatever they do will be as good as you want the thing to be and just go ahead with that.

Meanwhile music pounded / across hearts opening every valve to the desperate drama of being / a self in a song.

Consider incompleteness as a verb.

A refugee population is hungry for language and aware that anything can happen.

The beloved's innocence brutalizes the lover. As the singing of a mad person behind you on the train enrages you, its beautiful animal-like teeth shining amid black planes of paint. As Helen enrages history. Senza uscita.

I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you will allow it. Brackets are exciting. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than a postage stamp--brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure.