The letter \u201cL\u201d at the beginning of LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian. Sappho (630 – 570 BC) was a Greek poetess from the island of of Lesbos. Beyond her poetry she is well known as symbol of\u00a0love and desire between women. The words \u201cSapphic\u201d and \u201clesbian\u201d derive from her name and place of birth.<\/p>\n
Here are poems by American lesbian poets. Elizabeth Bishop\u00a0(1911-1979) was U.S. Poet Laureate from 1949 to 1950. Kay Ryan was born in 1945 and served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2008-2010.<\/p>\n
I highly recommend that readers look up Bishop\u2019s poem The Fish<\/em>, which is too\u00a0long to publish here. Bishop\u2019s poems have inspired me to write several sonnets.<\/p>\n I heard Kay Ryan read her poems to a packed auditorium in\u00a0Las Vegas while I lived there. She spoke eloquently of the recent loss\u00a0of her partner.<\/p>\n Both were community college teachers.<\/p>\n I chose poems dealing with the ocean to share here in the CNMI.<\/p>\n The Wave\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n (Written by Elizabeth Bishop when she was 18 years old, 1929)<\/em><\/p>\n A shining wave<\/p>\n Fills all the skies<\/p>\n Bright shadows float<\/p>\n Across the land.<\/p>\n See, crystal clear,<\/p>\n Its helmet rise!<\/p>\n And now the motion<\/p>\n Of a hand,<\/p>\n A tiny quickening<\/p>\n Of the heart,<\/p>\n And it will fall<\/p>\n And nothing more<\/p>\n Can keep the sea and land apart.<\/p>\n How still, how blinding is the light!<\/p>\n Spellbound and golden shines the foam.<\/p>\n Without a gesture<\/p>\n Or a word<\/p>\n It cannot break;<\/p>\n The wing must turn, and nest again<\/p>\n The radiant bird,<\/p>\n The wave, the wonder, go back home.<\/p>\n We do not move,<\/p>\n We do not flee,<\/p>\n We see it shudder, lightning bright,<\/p>\n And dully double<\/p>\n On the sea<\/p>\n We are too innocent and wise,<\/p>\n We laugh into each other\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n Chop\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n By Kay Ryan<\/em><\/p>\n The bird walks down the beach along the glazed edge<\/p>\n The last wave reached. His each step makes a perfect stamp \u2013<\/p>\n smallish, but as sharp as an emperor\u2019s chop. Stride, stride,<\/p>\n goes the emperor down his wide mirrored promenade<\/p>\n the sea bows to repolish.<\/p>\n Shark\u2019s Teeth<\/strong><\/p>\n By Kay Ryan, 2005<\/em><\/p>\n Everything contains some silence. Noise gets its zest from<\/p>\n the small shark\u2019s-tooth shaped fragments of rest angled in it.<\/p>\n An hour of city holds maybe a minute of these remnants of<\/p>\n a time when silence reigned, compact and dangerous as a shark.<\/p>\n Sometimes a bit of tail or fin can still be sensed in parks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The letter \u201cL\u201d at the beginning of LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian. Sappho (630 – 570…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":387597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}