If Not, Winter : Fragments of Sappho

I return to this book often and with what I can only call love, to inspire titles for my artwork, to find space for imagination, and to feel connected to women's voices through time. Sappho's words are kept alive through Anne Carson's translation, and the generosity of sharing not only what is preserved, but also what is lost. As a visual artist, trained in sculpture I appreciate the use of brackets and empty space to indicate missing matter - actual destroyed papyrus, pointing to the physicality, the substrates of language and writing. Sappho's voice on the page carried into the future by Anne Carson coheres the material, the visual, and the word. When I open this book, I instantly feel a thread connecting the enormity of women's lives through time, work, care, and desire. Each read resonates anew, this work is alive, echoing through time, and actual fibres.