Sapphic Songs
Eighteen to Eighty the Love Poetry of Elsa Gidlow
Elsa Gidlow
An enthralling collection of love poems written by the poet from age seventeen (“Love’s Acolyte,” written in 1918) to those written in the poet’s seventies (“Love in Age,” 1974). The poems are not in chronological order but begin with Gidlow’s “Invocation to Sappho,” “which has been quoted, reprinted, and anthologised in more place than I know.” In homage to the lesbian poet Renée Vivien’s spelling, Gidlow moves between the more popular “Sappho” and Viven’s “Psappha.” Gidlow explains in her warm and generous introduction that the publication was borne from her experiences reading poetry to younger generations of lesbians, where each reading of contemporary material ended in questions about her earlier experiences: What had life been like for a woman who loved women in the first half of the twentieth century? “In fact, by far the most frequently asked questions had to do with what were felt to be the problems and agonies of being Lesbian in a society that made you a stranger, if not an outlaw and a pariah.” With these poems, Gidlow delivers an impassioned answer, but at the same time she delivers it with a passion that need not be distinctive of 1918 or 1974, resonating with any time. ~ Campbooks
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Details
| ISBN | 9780912932149 |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Copyright Date | 1982 |
| Publication Date | Dec-82 |
| Publisher | Booklegger Press |
| Format | Paperback |
| Language | English |
| Rating | Good |
| BookID | 11006 |
