Sloane
used bookstore had a cardboard sign that just said sapphism. i stood there like it might be a rash. the books were poems and a couple of novels. nobody around to ask except a cat on the counter, and he doesn't do vocab.
i know sapphic. i say it. sapphism feels like the old noun somebody's great-aunt would use, or a professor. same Sappho, or a different door.
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4 replies
Val
same root. Sappho. sapphism is the noun, sapphic is the adjective people actually say. you will not hear sapphism at brunch unless someone is being annoying on purpose.
Kim
my lit class in 2009 used sapphism on the syllabus and half of us pretended we'd always known. it meant the love poems and the women-loving-women shelf. still does, mostly in bookstores and syllabi.
Jules
if the sign is over the queer women shelf, you read it right. if it's over gardening, leave.
Sloane
bought the poems. cat remained useless. shelf makes sense now.
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