Two States of Mind
22" x 21" x 10"
bronze
2009
Inspired by the book: If Not Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Anne Carson
” I don’t know what to do…Two States of Mind”
If Not, Winter provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia.
Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to have composed, only one poem has survived complete. The rest are fragments. In this miraculous new translation, acclaimed poet and classicist Anne Carson presents all of Sappho’s fragments, in Greek and in English, as if on the ragged scraps of papyrus that preserve them, inviting a thrill of discovery and conjecture that can be described only as electric—or, to use Sappho’s words, as “thin fire . . . racing under skin.”