Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Great Regulars: "Breathless" is a love-poem--

tender, direct and almost shy in tone. Like the short lyrics and fragments by Sappho it gains intensity from brevity. Sappho often pairs frank emotional statement with imagery from the natural world: "Love shook my heart,/Like the wind on the mountain/Troubling the oak-trees." (Sappho, tr. A S Kline). "Breathless", too, begins with the human response: "Your heart thumps -".

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Breathless by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

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