Sappho Poetry

Sappho's poetry is intriguing. Most of the poems you would read and not know a woman was writing. There are very few lines that hint at a female author, especially in the third poem, where she describes the jealousy she feels for the man who gets to sit near her love and the physical effect the woman has on her. She describes the way her body reacts when her love is near as not being able to see, getting hot, shivering, etc. I can see how her writing is viewed as incredibly erotic in this case, since it sounds like she is pretty much having an orgasm in this poem just at the mere presence of the woman she loves. I found her other poems and poem fragments to be more subtle with the eroticism than this poem, but definitely still there, as in her poem where she compares a woman to a ripe red apple that no one else can reach. This could definitely be an analogy for the woman's virginity, or love/passion in general. This poem seems to convey that although everyone else has forgotten about it, the author herself remembers and desires it.