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Rating: 
Summary: the Lesbian lesbian
Review: Because Sappho was a Lesbian who wrote about lesbian love, her poetry was banned at times throughout the ages, and therefore to this day there are only surviving fragments of her work and almost no complete poems. But of the fragments there is more than enough to ensure her place as one of the great female poets of all time. She wrote mainly love poems about things like passion, jealousy, and hostility towards her enemies. This book includes all of her surviving verse in a very readable and enjoyable translation.
David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"
Rating:
Summary: A pure earthy pleasure
Review: Bernard's translation of Sappho is a translation of a poet who is down-to-earth, who pays attention to the detail.Some of the fragments are so brief that you are reminded of haiku: "The nightengale's / The soft-spoken / announcer of / Spring's presence" Other poems speak specifically of feminine concerns - the lost of the maiden-head, the color of ribbon that fits best in her daughter's yellow hair. I read a great deal of poetry in translation. In other translations I have not found Sappho to my liking. This translation appears to me to be truer to the author's earthliness and less concerned with making Sappho fit into preconceptions. In short, I highly recommend this translation.
Rating:
Summary: A pure earthy pleasure
Review: Bernard's translation of Sappho is a translation of a poet who is down-to-earth, who pays attention to the detail. Some of the fragments are so brief that you are reminded of haiku: "The nightengale's / The soft-spoken / announcer of / Spring's presence" Other poems speak specifically of feminine concerns - the lost of the maiden-head, the color of ribbon that fits best in her daughter's yellow hair. I read a great deal of poetry in translation. In other translations I have not found Sappho to my liking. This translation appears to me to be truer to the author's earthliness and less concerned with making Sappho fit into preconceptions. In short, I highly recommend this translation.
Rating: 
Summary: "there's so much beauty..."
Review: Rich Mullins once wrote "there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see." And so it is with the poetry of this ancient Greek lady Sappho. Without her extra eyes, I would be robbed of some sights I could not have found without her. For instance, in one of her poems, she writes: "Awed by her splendor Stars near the lovely
moon cover their own
bright faces
when she
is roundest and lights
earth with her silver" Not only is there beauty. There is a straightforwardness and frankness to the poems of Sappho. It is a clear distillation of the poet's vision confronts the readers of these pages. There is also wisdom and humor. As when she writes: "Experience shows us Wealth unchaperoned
by Virtue is never
an innocuous neighbor" Mary Barnard is to be praised for these clear, unvarnished translations. Likewise, the introduction is very useful in dispelling so much of the myth that has sprung up around the legacy of this great poet. I recommend this book highly.
Rating:
Summary: Was Sappho a lesbian ?
Review: Sappho takes a special place among the poets of Antiquity. Plato already said that she was the tenth Muse.It's really refreshing to read her poems. They are very vivid and she needs only a few words to describe essential human feelings.
I'm not qualified to judge the translation but it strikes me that the poem known as 'The wedding of Hektor and Andromache'is left out (4 stars instead of 5).This poem is one of the most vivid descriptions in the poetry of Antiquity. It gives an almost journalistic account of the homecoming of Hektor and Andromache.
By many persons Sappho is considered as a lesbian writer. I don't have the answers but we should consider a few things. Poems, though they reveal a lot of the poet, are seldom strictly autobiographical. In Antiquity no writer reveals his most inner feelings. We have to wait untill 'The Confessions' by St. Augustin in the 4th century A.C. to see that happen.
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