Good karma moved quietly,
Revolving back with purpose,
Finding the hands that gave
Without witness,
Lifting the hearts that remained
True in the shadows-
Returning softly
She who perceived what dusky tones to lyric
visions and visitations drifting sea beats
her obsidian deep in bowels of rock
mermen watching neat
River spirit maidens ask freedom's turquoise
within midnight's black grimace God gleams white light
against rainfall sky her fair deploy was
Love's only employ
Sappho's obsidian dust incubating
on Earth ~ Aphrodite's coal its sound inert
no beetles can roam its aura's fast converts
implacable hurts —
Muse awaited no crown pharoah’s lips fleshy
in cosmic time concept will bell excell
grecian pudding spiced hot on cypress table
obsidian spell
Soft dew drops upon unbound black hair curling
sprinkling coloured leaves of body's flesh tree
jet night pale blossoms wrapping barefeet pitch
woman cracked stone itch …
Amidst obsidian leaking indigo
Sappho's loamy dream creating blackout moon
sleepy swoons across mossy floor encircle
legs entwine quirkle —
Hierophants composed illusion stories
she did not believe, dark related truth’s scout
as sure as fire heats every sunset closing
Sappho’s stone reigns clout ~
Fire-bright moments press against my heartbeat,
pulling breath taut as wire in a storm wind;
even stillness trembles under their pressure~
pure, unbroken force.
Moon-stead voices gather in measured longing,
Shaping thought to linger in lyric stillness;
Fourteen lines become a lantern for meaning~
Light over silence.
poem written for online poetry class assignment=write a single stanza sapphic
Hail, fair Aphrodite, foam-born, star of the sea-ways,
Mist-veiled sovereign, mover of mortal bosoms,
Bearer of sighs and bloom of the secret garden—
Hear now my praising.
Thou who mak’st kings bow low and shepherds mighty,
Thou whose glance sets the coldest spirit burning,
Soft is thy yoke, yet none may flee thy binding—
Sweet is thy governance.
Dost thou recall our hours in hush and amber,
When breath met breath and time itself stood hearkening?
Say, if thou wilt, in dream or sign or whisper—
I yet remember.
Take thou this vow, by rose and hidden ember:
No tongue shall loose the tale we twain have carried;
Close kept, sealed fast, our chronicle unspoken—
Veiled be our history.
Winter on her window's pane, separating
the sinews from frost; both really burn so cold;
she darkens with fingertips discovering
Winter's stillbirth like glass
Winter in February's wind that mirrors
the window that's shaking without breaking her,
a broken icicle first dripped first, after
Winter's stillbirth like glass
Winter air left an angel's breath in her womb
where the snow had fallen, now white stitchery
on scared, scarred earths — nothing stays baby or dead;
Winter's stillbirth like glass
Winter slides like tears down her own window's cheeks,
she touches her even in the white-hot sun —
her insides now step in grass flowering, none
Winter's stillbirth like glass
Days of poet motivate calm compassion.
Sheer injustice evident—every turnpike
manned by soldiers’ wild unfamiliar passion
planned around harsh Strike.
Summonsed lamb to slaughter, but still respecting
burning bush—obedience lit by daydream,
Ares now advance with his pride, suspecting
alter in regime.
Bending truth to suit the occasion’s essence,
whispers coil in shadows of veiled renitence.
Glow of waters lap at the swirling valence.
Ebbing of sentience.
Psappho wept—her dream has dispersed as token.
Rose-fingered moon’s face will exceed all starlight.*
Silence now descends tableau muffled, Brocken
Spectre of moonlight.
{Poet’s Note : Fourth Poem of Set of 5 SPOKEN WORD poems written in SAPPHIC STANZAS }
____________________
Life offers to support, first open to Love’s thorns
Sun not changeable, hands to give of own horns
centre in flesh where patience and Spirit mingle
Heart is where they jingle
World our mirror, transparency it holds bold
magical meanings with musical moments emit
highest are those whose existence is not known
hoist ideals beauty sown
We will say, Sisters! we ourselves have achieved
opalescent Sacred Sun wants figures of eight
firmly in lap of luxury, the bait
to lament no more
Brothers no longer hold score, treasure inside
entire planet home, Lesbos to Egypt, no hide
see crystal clear with fine papyrus and ink
so very dear, cheer
Universal power arranges spacious
awareness without thoughts jumbled enchanting
awe at abundant good fortune Heart opened receptive we sing
At wedding feasts nothing further needs adding
Femmes ! to moment sway not nay, syrtos in hay
stepping back to allow for Spirit’s addition
groom in white and black
Union is You _________>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
{Poet’s Note : Third Poem of Set of 5 SPOKEN WORD poems written in SAPPHIC STANZAS }
____________________
Power of moment equals power itself
intuition is direct perception true
free from any reasoning constrictions
truth redemption raw
Intelligence with insight fresh dwells in Heart
recognition of holy inheritance
calls going out never return unanswered
ONE listens raptly
Sisters ! we are pure existence, finely cased
resist not this, lest offspring rings no lacy face
cast no emotion asunder, scatter on waves
judge not Dark Nights of Soul
Identify viable passions, what’s best
explore possibilities, differentiate hest
trust your ideas and commitments, no fear
away from crowds, hear
Will of Supreme desires meshment of leaves
birthed not to resist parts of One, reject no eaves
return to states of harmony now urgent
acceptance of all
Equalise resistibility to trying seasons
timid is need to fathom everything new
lose not ourselves in futures still to arrive
motions of waves ebb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
{Poet’s Note : Second Poem of Set of 5 SPOKEN WORD poems written in SAPPHIC STANZA }
____________________
Trust is substance of things hoped for truthful
kaleidoscopic is mythopoeics of Spirit
collective consciousness seeks sensibility
single songs rooted
Ecstacy rests on belief and compassion
inductive reasoning no toil to rich soil
task completion depends on harmony
fulfilment follows
Use alignment of dimensions acutely
Sisters ! impresss subjective on cosmic mind
ether surely holds what is ached for not sold
bold with Absolute
In relationship serve finely each other
allow answers to birth deeper questions
making muddy unconscious conscious to Light
Love is stardust kites
Wise are wise only because they love tender
foolish are foolish because slender is Heart shut
shadows burn when ascension is not earned
fall not into rut
Timeless presence is what we look for, Femmes !
we are thingness of life, seeking I-ness of life
form comes then disappears like pears on trees
let NO-thing come with ease
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The night is dark and unforgiving.
I tried to forgive you.
I was even thinking of giving you another chance like you asked for.
There is nothing left for you to say to me and there is nothing left for me to say to you.
The night is dark when your sad/alone and have no one to be there for you.
The night is my get away.
My get away from you and all the memories we have together.
The memories you have already let go of.
You never loved me anyways.
I try to let go of what we had because it want real anyways.
I tried to see the good in you but I don't think there is any left in you.
I tried to give you my heart and you crushed it like a kid would with a lolly pop.
The night sky makes me sad but it also makes me happy.
The stars are shining in a way I could never.
The stars are the beauty in the dark.
The stars are my new found hope.
The dark of the night sky can be lonely if you cant see the beauty but sometimes it never changes the way you hope it will.
The dark of the night sky is what keeps me going.
The dark of the night sky is my calming place.
I owe you an apology I thought I hated you for leaving me behind.
but the truth is I hate myself for falling for you.
I didn't realize that I what I was doing was considered harassment.
I'm sorry that I got a little to attached to you.
I'm am truly sorry I never ment for things to go as far as they did.
now I see you in my dreams you ask me what kind of dreams.
I tell you some are the same and others are normal.
the truth is the dreams with you in them is something we never had true love.
I've seen what could of been and tried to warp that into reality
but it was just a dream that wont come true and I see that now
I'm sorry if you ever felt peer pressured into anything
we agreed to go our different way just know I wish you the best of luck
is crazy to think we got this far
you could of reported me for harassment but you didn't
you say you call me dork as a sing that you care
if you care then why cant we just be friends?
I'm trying to see it though your eyes and perspective but i cant
I'm letting go without letting go
so good bye till we meet again Ed
(Sappho and Leuceus drunk,fighting over who invented the Stanza)
Lesbos howls with song and mgosi tonight,
Leuceus thumbs the table-claims my Stanza his,
I toss my hair,sip the sqo,my daughter lightning-
Let Ogun decide!
He stutters of meters,I of love divine,
He waves his laptop,I smash my Zamalek beer glass to silence
The gods choke at their peptic ulcers-
Mami Wata takes sides.
Tomorrow the'll call me fallen,sinner,muse of rain,
But in their shame,they'll still steal my rhythm,
He'll drown in envy's cup,Ill wake to babalazi
Makoti sing my song
Explanation of words
mgosi-gossip
sqo-as in traditional beer
Zamalek: Black Label Carling beer
Ogun: The god of war
mami wata:mother of water is a symbol of beauty and that's all men want to hear
babalazi-a massive hangover
makoti- ''Maak ons tee'' in Afrikaans meaning ''Make us tea''.This is what will happen to school dropouts;just think about the fate of this one: a young married woman supervised by a grumpy old woman who complaints about anything under the son.
The gado* crashes past sweethearts'murals,hearts already broken,
Vapor groans like weary wraiths of last day' pledges,
Skins glow with Vaseline,faces lit by deceptive affection-
Who dares to feel?
Her fragrance wafts blending with metal breath,
We exchange looks,the calm betwixt us murmurs like power lines,
Outdoors,level plots fade in a murkiness of dirt and nostalgia-
I almost speak
But at Langlaagte* too soon she's gone with the throng,
Only the echo of her kindness marks my seat,
I scroll through unfamiliar smiles,phony love returns-
Between stations,hurt.
Gado--South African slang for train
Langlaagte--A train station in Johannesburg
The Uba flies,Sani Pass flickers under streetlights,
My chest aches with thought,lungs burn with reminiscence,
Sacrificing pride twists my mind with doubt,she lingers unseen-
I remain still
Mist owns Vrede,a sunless Free State night in autumn,
My pulse revolts,doubt gnaws the edges of determination-
I grip the door handle,heart rebelling,breath caught-
I order the driver back
Introduction
The signature pleasure here lies in hearing a sustained verbal current suddenly narrow into a compact close. A poet has room to establish an image, argument, or emotional atmosphere, yet the stanza ultimately asks for concentration. That change of scale can feel like a verdict, an afterimage, a sigh, or a door shutting. As you read the community poems, listen for how each writer manages this tension between amplitude and brevity rather than attending only to visible structure.
Read side by side, Sapphic stanzas reveal striking differences in temperament. One poet may favor ceremonial language and a stately voice; another may make the cadence conversational, intimate, comic, or unsettled. Some writers let syntax flow smoothly through the stanza, while others use interruptions, enjambment, and sharp internal pauses. A brief final line may complete the thought, revise it, or leave a resonant fragment behind. Longer poems can also vary the emotional function of that closing gesture from stanza to stanza.
Browsing multiple community poems makes these possibilities easier to recognize. An isolated example may suggest that one tone or pacing strategy is essential, but comparison shows how much depends on diction, sentence design, sound, and placement of emphasis. Read beyond the first example and consider not only whether a poem is recognizable as the form, but what the form enables that ordinary lineation might not. The most rewarding comparisons reveal how a shared architecture can support sharply individual voices.
Reading Guide
Begin by reading each poem once for meaning and again for movement. On the second reading, notice how the extended lines carry thought and how the abbreviated close changes your physical and emotional pace. The form often works through accumulated expectation: the ear becomes accustomed to breadth, then encounters sudden compression. Comparing several poets' approaches will help you distinguish mere formal resemblance from purposeful control of cadence, syntax, and closure.
- Listen for the governing pulse. A successful cadence need not sound like a metronome. Notice where natural speech supports the patterned movement and where emphasis creates friction. Does the rhythm deepen the voice, or can you hear words being strained to satisfy it?
- Track the sentence across the lines. Some sentences settle at line endings; others push through them, generating momentum or suspense. Ask whether the syntax cooperates with the stanza's shape or productively resists it, and how that choice affects your anticipation.
- Study the brief closing line. It carries unusual weight because it follows more expansive phrasing. Compare whether poets use it as summary, reversal, echo, image, command, or deliberate incompletion. What remains in your mind after the close, and why?
- Notice internal pauses. Commas, dashes, clauses, and shifts in address can divide a long line into audible units. Ask whether those pauses make the language ceremonial, conversational, hesitant, urgent, or songlike. How would the stanza change if read without them?
- Follow sound beyond end rhyme. Repeated vowels, consonants, and word shapes can bind the longer lines while preparing the final cadence. Which sounds recur, and do they reinforce the subject's mood or merely decorate the surface?
- Compare stanza-to-stanza development. In a sequence, each compact ending can act differently: one may close an image while the next opens a question. Does the poem build through variation, or does every stanza repeat the same emotional maneuver?
Read the community poems aloud when possible. The page shows arrangement, but the voice reveals balance, pressure, and release. A comparative reading will sharpen your sense of which choices feel inevitable and which remain provisional.
Writing Tips
Approach a draft as an arrangement of pressure, not as a container to be filled. The form rewards material that can unfold through sustained phrasing and then survive a sudden narrowing. Before counting or scanning anything, identify the image, statement, or emotional complication that deserves this alternation. Draft toward a compact closing gesture, but leave yourself several possible destinations so the poem does not become predictable.
- Choose material with an inner contrast. Subjects involving desire and restraint, observation and judgment, presence and absence, or ceremony and private doubt suit the stanza's expansive-to-compressed movement. Ask what can be developed at length and what must finally be distilled.
- Write a living sentence before engineering the cadence. If you begin by forcing every word into a pattern, diction may become stiff or inverted. Establish a clear voice and meaningful syntax first; then reshape the sentence through substitutions, contractions, and reordered phrases that remain idiomatic.
- Let rhythmic variation carry meaning. A pulse can be perceptible without receiving identical emphasis in every phrase. Use heavier stresses for insistence, softer passages for reflection, and pauses for conflict. Excessively regular delivery may turn emotional complexity into a sing-song exercise.
- Give the extended lines concrete work. Do not pad them with adjectives, abstractions, or repeated information. Let each add an image, qualify a claim, redirect the sentence, or intensify the situation. Formal length should create development rather than verbal bulk.
- Design the short close as more than a label. A common beginner mistake is attaching a convenient fragment that merely restates the preceding thought. Test alternatives: a sensory detail, an altered verb, an unexpected addressee, a quiet contradiction, or an image whose implications continue beyond the stanza.
- Use sound as structural adhesive. Internal echoes can connect phrases that syntax keeps apart. Repeat a vowel or consonant selectively, especially around important stresses, but avoid packing the line with conspicuous effects that distract from the speaker's intention.
- Control enjambment deliberately. Carrying syntax across a boundary can quicken the poem or postpone a revelation; a firm pause can confer gravity. Mark every line ending and ask what expectation it creates before the reader reaches the next word.
- Preserve the speaker's individuality. The form may invite elevated diction, but grandeur is not mandatory. A restrained, humorous, contemporary, or intimate voice can be persuasive if its vocabulary and rhythm belong to the same consciousness. Avoid antiquated phrasing adopted solely to make the pattern easier.
During revision, read the draft aloud slowly, then at a natural conversational pace. Mark places where the tongue hesitates for the wrong reason, where an unstressed word must be unnaturally punched, or where the ending arrives before the thought has earned it. Next, revise imagery for precision and remove explanatory phrases that the images already imply. Finally, compare successive stanzas: vary their turns and closing effects while preserving an audible kinship. Formal accuracy matters, but the strongest revision makes the structure feel inseparable from what the poem has to say.
Interesting Facts
- Naturalness may be harder than recognition. A draft can display the expected silhouette while sounding verbally contorted. The deeper challenge is making patterned movement seem native to the speaker's thought, especially when ordinary English emphasis resists a convenient word order.
- The compact close magnifies diction. Because the reader arrives there after broader lines, even a plain noun or verb can gain unusual force. An abstract phrase may feel thin in that position, while one precise object can become the stanza's lasting afterimage.
- Compression does not always mean conclusion. The final line can settle an argument, but it can also suspend it. A fragment, question, or ambiguous image may use brevity to enlarge uncertainty rather than provide closure.
- Pauses can change the form's personality. The same underlying cadence may sound solemn when delivered in balanced clauses, urgent when enjambed, or intimate when broken by conversational hesitations. Performance reveals these differences more clearly than visual inspection alone.
- Multiple stanzas create a second pattern. Readers begin to remember not only the recurring shape but also the changing role of each ending. A poet can establish a habit of closure and then disturb it, giving a later stanza disproportionate emotional force.
- Variation can clarify identity rather than erase it. Experienced writers may loosen a local emphasis, interrupt the flow, or allow syntax to cross a boundary when the expressive reason is strong. Browse the poems in this collection to compare where adaptation sounds intentional and where the governing cadence becomes difficult to hear.
Popular Themes
Subject matter and stanza movement cannot be separated: what a poem discusses affects how its long phrases gather pressure and what its brief close is able to release or withhold. The following themes are literary possibilities, not statistical rankings of the community collection.
- Desire and distance. Extended lines can linger over the desired person, place, or future, while the short close exposes absence or restraint. The contrast lets longing feel both abundant and sharply limited.
- Memory and aftermath. A poet can unfold layered recollection through sensory particulars, then end with the small surviving fact that memory cannot revise. Repeated stanzas may show how each remembered scene alters the present speaker.
- Landscape and weather. Broad visual or sonic description benefits from sustained phrasing, while the compact ending can isolate one bird, shadow, wave, or human trace. Nature thus becomes both setting and emotional instrument.
- Invocation, praise, and address. The measured cadence can lend direct address a ceremonial intensity without requiring inflated language. A brief final appeal, name, or command can focus everything that precedes it.
- Conflict between public and private selves. The longer lines can carry explanation, social performance, or controlled argument; the close can reveal the thought the speaker has withheld. This makes the form useful for irony, confession, and divided loyalties.
- Mortality and impermanence. Accumulation followed by brevity can enact the movement from a full life or vivid scene toward disappearance. The ending need not pronounce a moral; a concrete remnant may communicate loss more powerfully.
- Humor and deflation. A poised buildup can prepare a compact correction, anticlimax, or dry aside. The joke works best when the final turn also reveals character or complicates the subject rather than functioning as a detachable punch line.
As you read the community poems, compare writers who approach similar subjects. Notice whether one turns memory into lament while another makes it comic, or whether landscape becomes refuge, threat, or witness. Shared themes make differences in voice, pacing, imagery, and closure especially visible.
Editorial Insights
The central artistic tension of the Sapphic stanza lies between audible design and credible utterance. Its cadence asks the reader to feel order, while its asymmetrical closing movement prevents that order from becoming completely settled. A technically recognizable draft may reproduce the expected proportions, yet a memorable poem makes those proportions feel psychologically necessary. The thought expands because the speaker is observing, arguing, desiring, or resisting; it contracts because something has been discovered, withheld, or transformed.
Strong poems therefore treat structure as dramatic action. The longer movement may gather sensory evidence, extend a sentence beyond comfort, or maintain a composed public voice. The brief close can then expose vulnerability, sharpen an image, or alter the meaning of an earlier phrase. Editors and attentive readers notice when sound reinforces this action: firm stresses may support authority, consonantal friction may register conflict, and a quieter cadence may let grief remain controlled. These effects matter because they arise from the subject rather than being added as ornament.
Weaker drafts often reveal the scaffolding too plainly. Words may be inverted, inflated, or selected only because they are metrically convenient. Every stanza may make the same turn, so the recurring short line becomes predictable instead of charged. Another danger is over-explanation: after the images and cadence have already created an implication, the ending announces that implication again. The opposite problem also occurs when a poet relies on compression without supplying enough development; a cryptic close cannot resonate if the preceding language has given it nothing to transform.
Individuality survives shared convention through choices of attention. One writer notices textures and bodily sensations; another builds through argument, colloquial speech, or tonal understatement. Even strict attention to cadence leaves room for different sentence shapes, degrees of enjambment, registers of diction, and relationships between successive endings. Comparing multiple community poems develops judgment because it separates personal preference from craft awareness. Readers begin to hear when irregularity is expressive, when regularity becomes inert, when a final fragment truly reverberates, and when it merely stops. That comparative ear is more valuable than treating any single example as the form's definitive model.
Read, Write & Share
Read several community poems before settling on an impression of what the form can do. Compare how different writers shape the extended movement, manage natural speech, and give the brief close its emotional or imagistic weight. Thoughtful comments can name a cadence that worked, an ending that lingered, or a question raised by the poem without reducing response to correction.
Then try composing a Sapphic stanza of your own. Read it aloud, revise until structure and voice cooperate, and publish it on PoetrySoup so other readers can encounter-and thoughtfully discuss-your interpretation.
Collection Statistics
This collection contains 122 poems, offering many opportunities to compare voice, pacing, imagery, syntax, and approaches to closure. A collection of this size can show how poets make distinct artistic decisions within a shared framework: some may follow its conventions closely, while others adapt or challenge them for expressive purposes. Reading across the collection helps reveal both the stanza's recognizable pressures and the range of responses those pressures can inspire.
Sapphic Stanza Categories
Read wonderful sapphic stanza poetry on the following sub-topics:
ode
and more.
Definition | What is Sapphic Stanza in Poetry?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.