Entering sappho

An abandoned town named for the classical lesbian leads to questions about history and settlement.

Driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, you come to a road sign: Entering Sappho. Nothing remains of the town, just trash at the side of the highway and thick, wet bush. Can Sappho's breathless eroticism tell us anything about settlement--about why we're here in front of this sign? Mixing historical documents, oral histories, and experimental translations of the original lesbian poet's works, this book combines documentary and speculation, surveying a century in reverse. This town is one of many with a classical name. Take it as a symbol: perhaps in a place that no longer exists, another kind of future might be possible.

• This book is very sexual and queer.
• Sappho, WA, is a ghost town.
• It is set in the wilderness: people are crossing streams, having sex in the forest, carrying guns around, etc. Sappho in Sappho!
• This book is trying to offer a counter to the ways in which white people – especially women and queer folks – try to use our minoritized sexualities and genders to shirk complicity with settler colonialism. Instead, this book offers another way of reflecting on our present location and our relationships to history, suggesting ways of going into, rather than getting out of rightful guilt.