Sappho's Gymnasium

Rating:
Summary: Ambiguity makes these poems difficult but more beauitful.
Review: I bought Sappho's Gymnasium by Olga Broumas and T Begley on the basis of the first-lines listed on Amazon.com. The easy-going spirituality I saw in them appealed to me-I thought, "This looks just right." These poems are not the poems I've been waiting for my whole life, but I'm glad I've read them.

I was writing a letter to my friend about these poems and described them as "kinda crazy, out-there." There's no punctuation, which doesn't sit well with me, but it fits with Broumas and Begley's style. These short poems are mostly strings of images with some reflection too. Connections between the images aren't made-the reader needs to make the connections for herself. But in most places it's impossible to make these connections in a way that's wholly satisfying. Sometimes it feels pleasant to let the images play themselves in my mind-it feels like my unconscious is making sense of them in a way that's vague and beautiful. Sometimes the images interact, resonate with one another, in a way that I could never describe. But other times I get frustrated, as if the writers are playing a game with meaning, and it's a game I've played before, and I don't want to play with them.

This ambiguity is obviously what the poets wanted. Everything is viewed as if through a screen or in a very hazy, bright light. There are moments of clarity that I enjoy very much. For the most part, the poems don't seem whole-they're heavily dependant on one another-but there are occasional poems that stand alone as complete. I particularly like these ones; they seem more successful.

Because of the ambiguity, this book is generally frustrating to me, but also because of the ambiguity, it's also generally a pleasure. The easy-going spirituality that attracted me to this book initially is not explored as much as I wanted, but it is an undercurrent throughout the poems, a part of that bright, hazy light.