Sleeping with Sappho by Stephen Vincent

Stephen Vincent’s “Sleeping with Sappho” is a fascinating investigation of how a writer envisions a way back into history and simultaneously contemporizes it. In this take on Sappho, Vincent invites his children, friends, and anonymous others to enter as characters enacting a current scene both in SF and simultaneously ancient Lesbos. He makes it unitary by spinning variations which reiterate the fragmentary Sappho that remains to give us a far/ranging and delightful take on how ancient voices speak to us and make our writing whole. If we trust our best instincts as readers to synthesize and appreciate the new territory, we are richly rewarded in this new version of Sappho through the lens of our moment. Read this book for pleasure in its invention of satisfyingly new conjunctions.

— Maxine Chernoff

Stephen Vincent is a bookman. Poet, editor, publisher and general all-around bibliophile, he has during the past few years turned to making a form of writing he calls haptic drawing. His most recent poetry books include After Language: Letters to Jack Spicer (BlazeVOX, 2012), Walking (Junction Press, 1996), Walking Theory (Junction Press, 2006), and the ebooks Triggers (Shearsman, 2004). From 1972 to 1981, he was the publisher of Momo’s Press books, which first introduced the work of such poets and writers as Ntozake Shange, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Hilton Obenzinger, Beverly Dahlen, and Jessica Hagedorn. In the eighties, he was the director of Bedford Arts, Publishers, which became internationally recognized for the publication of books featuring the works of Masahisa Fukase, David Park, Roy DeForest, Miriam Schapiro, Mark Klett, and Christo. Throughout his career, Vincent has occasionally taught Creative Writing at schools that have included the University of Nigeria, San Francisco State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute. Since 2007, in addition to writing, his drawings have been featured in gallery shows at Braunstein Quay (San Francisco), 2009; Steven Wolf Fine Arts Gallery (San Francisco), 2009; Jack Hanley Gallery (New York), 2011, and Anglim-Trimble (San Francisco) The haptics are an implicit part of three of his books: The First 100 Days of Obama (Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 2009) and The Last 100 Days of The Presidency of Barack Obama (Book Studio, 2017) and Haptics: The Novel (XEXOXIAL Editions, 2013). Since 2006, he has created an Stephen Vincent resides in San Francisco.

Book Information:

· Paperback: 70 pages

· Binding: Perfect-Bound

· Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] 

· ISBN: 978-1-60964-443-7

$18

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