Poetry Book Club: If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho/Anne Carson

About this event

Each month, the Poetry Book Club meets online to discuss one must-read book of poems, whether a timeless classic or an award-winning contemporary. Led by Napa poet Kathleen Patterson, who has been an enthusiastic book club member since its beginning, meetings are open to all levels of poetry readers, both the curious and the committed. ABOUT THE BOOK In this "gorgeous translation" (The New York Times), one of our most fearless and original poets provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia. Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to have composed, only one poem has survived complete. The rest are fragments. In this miraculous new translation, acclaimed poet and classicist Anne Carson presents all of Sappho’s fragments, in Greek and in English, as if on the ragged scraps of papyrus that preserve them, inviting a thrill of discovery and conjecture that can be described only as electric—or, to use Sappho’s words, as “thin fire ... racing under skin.” "Carson is in many ways [Sappho's] ideal translator.... Her command of language is hones to a perfect edge and her approach to the text, respectful yet imaginative, results in verse that lets Sappho shine forth." —Los Angeles Times ABOUT THE AUTHOR ANNE CARSON was born in Canada and has been a professor of Classics for over thirty years. Her awards and honors include the Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations.