Posts Tagged ‘ Mike Miller ’

“The Lost Haiku of Sappho,” by Mike Miller

Apr 27th, 2011 | By

For countless generations, the romantic poetry of the Greek lyric poet Sappho (c. 630-c. 570 BCE) has tickled the ears of man and woman alike. Recent generations have misinterpreted her work as reflecting the demons of homosexuality; right-thinking scholarship, however, begs to differ. It is my purpose in this introduction, therefore, to dispel any and all scandalous rumors regarding the poet, our beloved matriarch and muse.

Though later exported to Japan by St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552 CE), the haiku poetic form dates back to ancient Greece. St. Cacostomos of Lydia writes in his compendious second-century Lives of the Lesbians that the pagan people of Anatolia claim the haiku was given to them by their god Hedone, daughter of Eros and Psyche. A common greeting amongst the heathens of this time, ‘ηδονη κυδος (hedone kudos—lit. “pleasure which is heard of,” perhaps used as a question, implying “Have you heard of pleasure?”), was often shortened to simply he~ku in speech.