Lesbian Poetry Retrospective Part 1

With the Librarian of Congress appointment of Kay Ryan as the nation’s 16th Poet Laureate this summer, we decided to look back on some of the great lesbian poets and poems throughout history.

As with any attempt to categorize or label, however, there is plenty of controversy surrounding the broad term “lesbian poetry.” What qualifies as “lesbian poetry”? Is the term restrictive? Where do poems for and about lesbians, but written by male poets (see Charles Baudelaire's “Lesbos”), fit into the definition?       

The 10 poets featured below represent a wide range of aesthetics and backgrounds. Each poet has contributed to and expanded the definition of lesbian poetry in a distinct and important way, showing that the genre is as multifaceted and difficult to characterize as lesbians themselves.

Sappho

You cannot talk about lesbian poetry without first bringing up Sappho, the “10th muse” and the only woman canonized as one of the nine lyric poets in antiquity. Though little is known about the life of the Ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos (where the term “lesbian” derives), Sappho is easily the most iconic lesbian poet in history.

What we do know about Sappho is that she was a poet, teacher, mother and, despite some disagreement, a lesbian. Her work was not particularly political, although she was exiled from Greece, presumably for her political leanings.

As the details of Sappho’s life are limited, so are the remains of her work. Aside from two complete poems, only fragments of Sappho’s original verses have survived. No one knows for sure, but there are different legends surrounding the destruction of her work, including book burnings by Christians offended with the poetry’s lesbian content.

What remains reveals a poet primarily concerned with passion, suffering, love, desire and the intimacy between women. Sappho addressed many of her poems to three women—Anaktoria, Atthis and Gongyla, who is featured in the poem below from Willis Barnstone’s Sweetbitter Love: Poems of Sappho.

“Return, Gongyla”

A deed
your lovely face 

if not, winter
and no pain 

I bid you, Abanthis,
take up the lyre
and sing of Gongyla as again desire
floats around you 

the beautiful. When you saw her dress
it excited you. I’m happy.
The Kypros-born once
blamed me 

for praying
this word:
I want