{"id":2351,"date":"2021-12-12T23:01:52","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T04:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2021-12-14T14:25:43","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T19:25:43","slug":"adrienne-rich-hubble-photographs-after-sappho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/delgado\/adrienne-rich-hubble-photographs-after-sappho\/","title":{"rendered":"Adrienne Rich – \u201cHubble Photographs, After Sappho\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A recording of American singer Amanda Palmer (also known as Amanda Fucking Palmer) reading \u201cHubble Photographs\u201d as part of the 2020 Universe in Verse, an annual \u201ccelebration of science and nature through poetry.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cSome say a host of cavalry, others of infantry, and others of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the black earth, but I say it is whatsoever a person loves. . . . I would rather see her lovely walk and the bright sparkle of her face than the Lydians\u2019 chariots and armed infantry.\u201d<\/p>\n

-Sappho, \u201cThe Anactoria Poem\u201d<\/p>\n

Adrienne Rich cites Sappho\u2019s \u201cAnactoria Poem,\u201d a love poem referencing Helen of Troy, as the inspiration for this piece describing photographs taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Arguably, this is the most multi-faceted of the works I have selected to feature in this collection, with Rich actually expressing the opposite sentiment of Sappho\u2019s poem. \u201cIt should be the most desired sight of all \/ the person with whom you hope to live and die,\u201d Rich\u2019s poem begins (Rich 366). But then she goes on: \u201cYet I say \/ there is something more desirable: the ex-stasis of galaxies \/ so out from us there\u2019s no vocabulary \/ but mathematics and optics\u201d (Rich 366).<\/p>\n

\u201cHubble Photographs: After Sappho\u201d goes on to detail the beauty found in the images garnered from the Hubble Space Telescope, the \u201clacerations of light and dust\u201d and the \u201cviolet green livid and venous\u201d (Rich 366). Rich showers these images in beautiful, lengthy descriptions that make up most of the poem, and when she does mention the unnamed \u201clover\u201d (who is the subject of Sappho\u2019s poem), it is briefly and without detail. In this piece, Rich exalts the unexplored galaxies and places them above romantic love, in a complete reversal of the Sappho fragment she imitates.<\/p>\n

Even though Rich\u2019s poem is in direct contrast with Sappho\u2019s \u201cAnactoria Poem,\u201d this poem is a testament to the multifaceted nature of Sappho\u2019s legacy. Not all pieces in response to her works reflect the same ideas that she initially intended. A myriad of works like \u201cHubble Photographs\u201d find their inspiration in her writings, yet go in completely new or opposite directions. Sappho\u2019s influence on the poets of the 1970s and today is rich and complex, and her work lays the foundation for an abundance of artistic work that freely expresses female love and sexuality from a multitude of different perspectives.<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Palmer, Amanda. \u201cHubble Photographs: After Sappho.\u201d Vimeo<\/em>, 2019, https:\/\/vimeo.com\/332596348.<\/p>\n

Rich, Adrienne, et al. \u201cHubble Photographs: After Sappho.\u201d Selected Poems<\/em>, 1950-2012, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York, 2018, pp. 366\u2013367.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSome say a host of cavalry, others of infantry, and others of ships, is the most beautiful thing on the black earth, but I say it is whatsoever a person loves. . . . I would rather see her lovely … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-delgado"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3064,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions\/3064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}