Editor's Thoughts - Abigail Pearson

Sappho 

Like the very gods in my sight is he who
sits where he can look in your eyes, who listens
close to you, to hear the soft voice, its sweetness
         murmur in love and

laughter, all for him. But it breaks my spirit;
underneath my breast all the heart is shaken.
Let me only glance where you are, the voice dies,
         I can say nothing,

• Like the very gods by Sappho
  

This issue’s themes are very special to me, because as a bisexual woman I am always looking for queer themed prose and poetry and art. So it’s very exciting for  to be writing out my thoughts on this theme and to hopefully be inspiring someone to submit to us.
Sappho was a woman who lived in Ancient Greece, she was a poet but she was also supposedly a lesbian. When I did some research into her life I found out that her sexuality is debated about by some scholars, which is frustrating but such is life. Apparently some of this debate is around the fact that not all of the lovers she refers to in her poems are females, but for some reason the fact that she could have been bisexual doesn’t seem to enter into the minds of ‘’scholars’’. Another thing I find to be frustrating is it seems to me that the only people debating her sexuality are cis straight males.
Whether she was gay or bi, it doesn’t really matter to me much. What matters to me are her poems and the eloquence in them. What matters to me is that we can still read the musings and words of a woman who loved women. This matters. It matters because representation for the lesbian community matters. Because we all matter.
Sappho was an amazing poet, her words are thrilling to read even today. I hope that you all are inspired by them and write your own poems dedicated to love of all genders.