of the spangled mind

Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind,
child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you
do not break with hard pains,
O lady, my heart

Sappho, as translated by Anne Carson, in If Not, Winter

I was bothered by that word spangled before I read this because I thought it came to mind too often, it pops up too often in my fancy-pants elitist poetry phrase writing. Then I read about poikilos in Carson’s notes:

poikilothron or poikilophron

“The word is a compound adjective, used as an epithet of Aphrodite to identify either her ‘chair’ (thron-) or her ‘mind’ (phron-) as poikilos: ‘many-colored, spotted, dappled, variegated, intricate, embroidered, inlaid, highly wrought, complicated, changeful, diverse, abstruse, ambiguous, subtle.'”

That’s it! That’s exactly the general atmosphere of what I think I want to convey in a poem. I think I can’t, so I give up before I even start.

I tried to write a poem about this concept years ago when I was practicing poetry regularly. I was able to find it. August 4, 1992 (Sam’s birthday):

So care each word sparkles
Precious open a treasure
Palace small generating glow
Tracing with the pen the
lover’s outline skin on sheet
Baskets of rings
Boxes of beads
The still spaces of plenty
Stars but small
Connecting the glitter dots
reveals the true love pattern
There’s no a-ha,
Just knowing, time and joy

I couldn’t convey the “rich texture” feeling of life and love that I was striving for in that poem. I wanted the syntax to be fractured a bit to draw attention to the texture, but the poem fell apart in cliché. I don’t think I drew in enough of the physicality. Somehow the contrast between the body and the rich or bright elements of jewels, stars, and metal seem to bring out this idea, the poikilos that I love so much.

************
Other notes.

Comment spam is plaguing this site and I’m procrastinating about having to do something technical to fix it. In frustration, I closed the comment option by default. But that doesn’t help with older entries. I will have to put on my technical hat and work on this problem. Upgrade to mt 2.661 would be a start.

Carson’s book is beautiful and I want to do a whole entry on it later.

I’m in love with Marina T. and want to sit at her feet. I found two translations of “Homesickness” which are very different, and I want to do a whole entry on that later. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll ever learn Russian, which I would need to really “get it.”

Last night I made an open faced sandwich: Portuguese roll, a thin layer of baby spinach, a thin slice of red onion, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a thin slice of Provolone, under the broiler to melt the cheese. Tasted great! I think there’s a good food thread running through my life that I discount. It’s easily as worthwhile writing about my meals as about my books. Spangled mind, satisfied stomach.

Over and out,