Poetic License

Sappho, the Greek erotic poet whose songs were performed throughout the ancient world, is the new subject of an Erica Jong‘s Novel “Her images of love and desire have lasted for centuries” she said, and have inspired poets, songwriters and Jong.”She invented the whole vocabulary of erotic love,” Jong said in a recent phone interview from New York City. “She wasn’t following a tradition that existed; she created the tradition. She created the metaphors that you still hear in songs today — ‘A fire runs over my flesh. I freeze. I burn.’ Sappho was a very passionate woman.” Her amorous adventures are recounted in “Sappho’s Leap,” Jong’s fictionalized account of the poet’s life. It is one of several Jong works that will be referenced on Monday when Jong speaks at the Stanford Bookstore on campus. The discussion will focus on American feminism, as it relates to her works and the culture as a whole. Afterwards, Jong and classics scholar Robert Ball will discuss their collaboration on “Sappho’s Leap” at Stanford‘s Annenberg Auditorium.The author concluded by saying that the subject of her eighth novel is a cross between Madonna and Sylvia Plath — like the Material Girl in her colossal fame and like the tortured 20th-century poet in her ferocious truthfulness and legendary suicide. Based on a www.paloaltoonline.com article.