Wednesday

Papyri (2007)


Cover & Book design: Michael Steven



(October 3) Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0. Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007. 24 pp. [signed edition of 70 copies].
  1. When you walked in … (13/1-27/2/07)
  2. The Villa of the Papyri (30/3-2/4/07)
  3. Sappho to Anaktoria (4/8-2/10/06)
  4. Recipe for Making a Dadaist Poem (4/2/07)
  5. Ode to Aphrodite (4/2-28/2/07)
  6. Life among the Surrealists (21-26/11/06; 4/2/07)
  7. Atthis (13/1-9/2/07)
  8. Mnasidika (13/1-11/2/07)
  9. Fragments (22-24/2/07)
    1. I love magnificence … (13/1-22/2/07)
    2. Dying is bad … (4/8/06-22/2/07)
    3. The Moon’s set … (13/1-22/2/07)
    4. This pretty baby is mine … (13/1-24/2/07)
    5. Mum, I can’t thread … (13/1-24/2/07)
    6. Last night you slept on the breast … (13/1-24/2/07)
    7. We love to hear … (24/2/07)
  10. To a girl who doesn’t care for poetry (13/1-12/2/07)
  11. Juicy Root (13/1-27/2/07)
  12. Virgin (13/1-27/2/07)
  13. Sappho’s Epithalamion (13/1-10/3/07)




for Bronwyn





Jack Ross: Papyri (2007)


These versions after Sappho have been greatly assisted by the literal prose translations included in Mario Meunier's Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932)






                I bear-hugged you
having banked up the fires of love …


(13/1-27/2/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Fragments (3). Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 120.







The Villa of the Papyri is a house in Herculaneum, near Naples. 
Historians believe that it may once have belonged to Julius 
Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso. During the 
eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 it was completely covered in lava. 
Parts of it were excavated in 1765 by Karl Weber, though many 
sections remain unexplored to the present day.
   Piso was an historian and a philosopher, who owned an 
extensive library of papyrus scrolls. It is thought that some 
attempt was made during the eruption to evacuate these books by 
packing them into cases and carrying them out through an 
underground tunnel. The slaves deputed for the task were overtaken 
by poisonous fumes, however, leaving approximately 1800 papyri as 
carbonised spills in the lower levels of the villa.
   Developments in multi-spectral imaging during the 1990s 
have made it possible to decipher the texts on these burnt scrolls, 
and a number of appeals have been made to the international scholarly 
community to expedite the recovery of this largely untouched library 
from ancient Rome. The treasures within it might include the lost 
books of Livy’s History of Rome, poems by Sappho and Anakreon, 
unknown plays by Sophocles and Euripides …
   The Italian government’s official position is that even modern 
excavation techniques are not sufficiently advanced to guarantee the 
scrolls’ safety, and that they are therefore best left where they are 
at present. Other scholars fear that they are being gradually leached 
away and destroyed by the floods endemic to the region.
   Why have these scrolls not yet been dug up and read? What is it 
the authorities fear about them? Which long-cherished theories and 
ponderous speculations would they give the lie to? This is possibly 
the greatest opportunity mankind will ever have to recover the lost 
literature of classical antiquity, the books and scrolls feared lost 
forever in the burning of the fabled Library of Alexandria (whose 
destruction began – coincidentally? – when Julius Caesar set fire to 
the city’s docks whilst defending his mistress Cleopatra, during a 
domestic dynastic struggle).
   Up to now all we’ve been able to recover of Greek and Latin 
literature – besides the books copied and recopied by medieval monks, 
or translated into Arabic by Islamic scholars – has been a few fragments 
of papyri: mostly letters and accounts (with the occasional precious 
line or two of poetry) preserved in the sunbaked dryness of the 
Egyptian desert.
   The treasures of Herculaneum must frighten someone, somewhere, very 
much indeed for them to have been left to rot in a waterlogged ditch for 
over two centuries ...


(30/3-2/4/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 121-22.







Some say the finest sight
on this black earth is men on horses
others foot-soldiers    others
fleets of ships
                I say
it’s the one you love

How can I make that clear
to you?    Helen
who’d watched so many hunks
march by
            chose the one
who brought the topless towers down
gave up her children
                    her home
to follow him

A woman must bend to circumstances
focus on the present with a smile
Anaktoria
          you hardly seem

although she’s sitting beside you
to notice her
              whom I prefer 
to Mayday parades of tanks
goose-stepping infantry

I know that in this life
we can never reach
                   the pinnacle of our desire
surely it’s better to cherish
what Fate has given us
                   than to neglect her?


(4/8-2/10/06)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 123.

Notes:
  • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 70-71.







Take a newspaper. Take some scissors. Choose from this paper
an article of the length you want to make your poem. Cut out 
the article. Next carefully cut out each of the words that 
make up this article and put them all in a bag. Shake gently. 
Next take out each cutting one after the other. Copy 
conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag. 
The poem will resemble you. And there you are – an infinitely 
original author of charming sensibility, even though 
unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

– Tristan Tzara


(4/2/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 124.

Notes:
  • This “Recipe for Making a Dadaist Poem” is quoted from Mark Polizzotti, Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995) 145.







In spite of having poignant
Delirium and high surroundings
Father your daughter flees
Heart bring them back quickly

I hear you / Your Zeus
Of offering agile
That you darken yourself
Anxiety of intrigues

That which loves you will arrive
Because wings must
I only accept that
For your not you / Who?

Run she called
Fortunate to to / so well
That accomplished the
Never heart moment

Obtain if sparrows
Accomplished earth fullstop
Immortal with bitternesses 
Of gold sky

Don’t welcome in
Immortal listening
Twirling this between again
Reason hatching then

Suffered from it
From the ally leaving
Venerable and me
The ether-making anguish
 

Aphrodite
Face of handsome she
All Sappho desires
She precipitated

Goddess

Deliver me


(4/2-28/2/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 124-25.

Notes:
  • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 57-58.







"In August, René Crevel, twenty-two years old and handsome as a god, 
had been vacationing with his family on a Norman beach when a young 
girl fell at his feet and begged him to press geraniums between her breasts.
From this moment forbidden ever to see her think of her again
"That evening Crevel, the girl, her mother, and an old woman named Madame Dante had sat around a table and held a séance.
torpid, alone all evening resist the scented flytraps
"Within minutes Crevel had fallen into a deep sleep, during which (as the women told him afterwards) he had uttered remarkable statements.
your reward may be at the next café table
"But the experiments proceeded no further, as Crevel, still in uniform, had had to return to barracks the next morning."
trespass once across that border
– Mark Polizzotti, Revolution of the Mind: The life of André Breton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995), p. 178.
& you’re lost


(21-26/11/06; 4/2/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 126.

Notes:
  • "In August [1922], René Crevel, twenty-two years old and handsome as a god, had been vacationing with his family on a Norman beach when a young girl fell at his feet and begged him to press geraniums between her breasts. That evening Crevel, the girl, her mother, and an old woman named Madame Dante had sat around a table and held a séance. Within minutes Crevel had fallen into a deep sleep, during which (as the women told him afterwards) he had uttered remarkable statements. But the experiments proceeded no further, as Crevel, still in uniform, had had to return to barracks the next morning." - Mark Polizzotti, Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995): 178].







Atthis has gone for good this time
I’m sure
        I want to die

She left me in floods of tears
sobbing
Sappho, I feel like such a bitch

but I’ve got to go
Go if you want to
I replied

but think of me
remember me
because you know

how much I’ve loved you
will always love you
the joys we’ve shared together

the flowers you brought me
wove round my neck
& in my hair

languid, perfumed
on the couch
when you took away my appetite

for food


(13/1-9/2/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 127.

Notes:
  • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 66-67.







Atthis, dear to both of us
Mnasidika, has moved to Golden Bay
but her thoughts are here (she says)

like when we lived together
& she worshipped you from afar
or was that your guitar?

Now she outshines
those suntanned Nelson girls
like the Moon when darkness falls

folding her gentle light
over yellow fields of rape
eclipsing the starscape

wandering everywhere
the starved heart in her breast
grown skinny as her waist

while the night with its many ears
murmurs across the sea
dividing her love from me

something we know too well


(13/1-11/2/07)

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 128.

Notes:
  • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 68-69.







I love magnificence. Love, to me,
is the finest thing under the sun
I suppose that’s why
I wasn’t given beauty

& why the friends I hang out for
backbite me in return


•	


Dying is bad. The gods
would die like us
if it were fun


•	


The Moon’s set
ditto the Pleiades
it’s midnight
I’m alone


•	

 
This pretty baby is mine
she’s sweet as pollen
Mandy, I wouldn’t give her up
for anything … or anyone


•	


– Mum, I can’ t thread
the sewing machine today
I’m mad about
a boy ...
          – Again?


•	


Last night you slept on the breast
of a young friend …


•	


We love to hear
the voices of birds
the day, they say
is freshening


(13/1-22/2/07; 4/8/06-22/2/07; 13/1-22/2/07; 13/1-24/2/07; 13/1-24/2/07; 13/1-24/2/07; 24/2/07))

Publications:
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
  • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
  • Fragments (1) & Fragments (2). Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 129-30.

Notes:
  • Inspired by the literal prose translations in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 77c, 77b, 79, 76b, 75, 83, & 87-88.






  • One day they’ll lay you out & then
    nothing of you will be left behind
    because you don’t like listening to
    sweet words in rhythm
                          you’ll flit
    through the houses of dust forever
    indistinct among the other shades
    


    (13/1-12/2/07)

    Publications:
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
    • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
    • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 131.

    Notes:
    • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 74.







    Like the sweet apple
    ripening at the tip
    of the topmost branch
    the pickers left behind
    because they couldn’t reach it
    (however hard they tried)
    


    (13/1-27/2/07)

    Publications:
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
    • Fragments (3). Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
    • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 132.

    Notes:
    • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 93.







    ignorant of harm
    sweeter than music
    brighter than money
    whiter than milk
    smoother than water
    swifter than porsche
    softer than rosebud
    richer than gold card
    
    keep away from trash
    


    (13/1-27/2/07)

    Publications:
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
    • Fragments (3). Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
    • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 133.

    Notes:
    • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 95.







    You won’t find any brides			
    more beautiful than her	
    
    Sing Hymen, O Hymenaios Higher than the roof-tree Hymen lift him, carpenters O Hymenaios
    The bridegroom comes in like Ares taller than the tallest man Your bride is happy are you happy, too? Love, what should I compare you to? strong as a rose-stem delicate as a flower that’s how you look to me Bridegroom, the day has come at last when you can possess your bride Her beauty’s not intimidating her eyes sweeter than honey Love quenches its thirst at the sight of her face Lady Aphrodite bows low to honour you
    Sing Hymen, O Hymenaios Higher than the roof-tree Hymen lift him, carpenters O Hymenaios
    The sweetest songs are songs of joy


    (13/1-10/3/07)

    Publications:
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere. ISBN 978-0-473-12397-0 (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2007).
    • Papyri: Love poems & fragments from Sappho & elsewhere (Auckland: Pania Press, 2007).
    • Papyri: Poems, Imitations & Translations. (February 3, 2007 - )
    • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 134.

    Notes:
    • Inspired by the literal prose translation in Mario Meunier’s Sappho, Anacréon et Anacréontiques (Paris: Editions Bernard Grasset, 1932): 91-92.