Philosophy - hopeless. Yet it gives me hope.

Now every mortal has pain and sweat is constant, but if there is anything dearer than being alive, it's dark to me. We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing (whatever it is) that glitters on the earth-- we call it life. We know no other. The underworld's a blank and all the rest just fantasy.

Philosophy - hopeless. Yet it gives me hope.

What makes life life and not a simple story? Jagged bits moving never still, all along the wall.

I never had much education in English poetry as such.

You remember too much," my mother said to me recently. "Why hold onto all that?" And I said, "where can I put it down?

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.