Words No Longer There
Sequence Introduction
When I wrote this sequence of poems, I was particularly interested in fragments—the tangible remains of what was once a “whole” sequence. I realized on a visceral level that almost everything I remember, including what I remember from poems or novels I’ve read, remains with me in pieces.
I wrote a draft of “the one with violets in her lap” in response to a prompt. Asking myself to imagine words that are no longer there (looking at the absences) in fragment 21 caused me to think about experience as a collage of fragmentary impressions from various points in time and from different perspectives, glued together more by what someone imagines has happened than by in-fact happenings.
From that perspective, certain Sappho fragments seemed to demand response: coloring in the absences. The remaining poems in the sequence try to get at an intangible quality about romantic love that I was trying to express in the first poem. I attempted to access that feeling by writing directly to a beloved, writing from the viewpoint of that intangible quality, and writing to the absence about my frustration at being unable to fully and precisely express that quality in words. 
Words No Longer There
but I to you of a white goat (fragment 40)
the doorkeeper’s feet are seven armlengths long (fragment 110)
no more than the bird with piercing voice (fragment 30)
the one with violets in her lap (fragment 21)