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Christopher Childers's avatar

Hi Ted. Love the substack and have benefited so much from your music writing over the years. Listened to the Havels the other night—divine!

You might want to check out a book I wrote, The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, for translations of Sappho, Pindar, and many others. Here’s my version of Sappho 31:

https://www.literarymatters.org/1-1-sappho-31/

C

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Bob Hodges's avatar

Your comments on vulnerability reminded me of Ethel Waters' description of singing "Stormy Weather": "When I got out there in the middle of the Cotton Club floor I was telling the things I couldn't frame in words. I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn't straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted. Your imagination can carry you just so far. Only those who have been hurt deeply can understand what pain is, or humiliation."

"I sang Stormy Weather from the depths of a private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated."

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