1 poem with audio & photographs
VOICEOVER- -SAPPHO
[ recording badly damaged ]
*
Sing [
of the gifts appearing [
when it is the right time [
]
]
For this is all that [
*
*
] sheds [
] dream of the oceans who
] with thirst each lake [ ] river
] that empty their [ ] mountains
] waters into a dream
]
]
] reside hidden ]
]
] good
*
*
For this is all that [
] sing in the forest
] and the sun
] has provided
[
[
[
] its love
*
*
For this is spoken [ ] is the first
word by every mouth [
] is all that
] who [
]
] all of nature have all been
] wild animals
] the moon [ ] stars [ ] the Good Lord
] refreshing [
] beauty the body [
*
*
Sing [
] is all that
] for my mother
*
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE—
[ This found poem takes as its source material a poem titled “The Good Lord,” written by the translator’s Yiayia, Victoria Soliosi, in her native village of Pamfila on the island of Lesbos in July ‘98. The text used is a translation from her original Greek into English by his father, Peter Coromilas Jones. The bracketed arrangement of the poem echoes the aesthetic reproduction of Sappho’s papyrus fragments as translated by Anne Carson in If Not, Winter. This melding of content / form is particularly significant for the translator in that both Sappho / Victoriawere Mytiline natives—women whose lives are all but lost to history’s waters; women who loved, who offered, who impacted those around them; women who left behind only traces, fragments, intimate island talk, a language reserved for those who vibrate so closely they hardly even need a language to communicate. ]
[ The photographs within are a collaboration between the translator & the artist Douglas Rogerson. The translator has superimposed images of himself over the figure of Sappho as represented by Count Prosper d’Epinay’s statue of the poet (ca. 1895) on permanent view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. ]
[ The accompanying sound recording features the translator’s own father, Peter Coromilas Jones, reading the poem alongside the translator’s mother, Zenovia Maria Sfakianos Jones, whose recitation of the poem is interrupted by voicemails of the translator’s yiayia,Victoria Soliosi, as well as found / recorded sound. Due to deterioration of the recording, the translator recommends use of headphones. ]
Constantine Jones is a queer Greek-American thingmaker raised in Tennessee & currently housed in Brooklyn. They teach creative writing at the City College of New York. Their work has found homes in The PEN Poetry Series, Blood Tree, Hematopoiesis, & the HIV-awareness project, And So It Happened, & has been displayed or performed at various venues across the city, including Bowery Poetry, Smack Mellon (for the Brooklyn Poets Walt Whitman Bicentennial) & Bortolami Gallery (for the Visual AIDS Postcards From the Edge benefit exhibition).