From sappho.com

Biographical Excerpt:

One of the great Greek lyrists and few known female poets of the ancient world, Sappho was born some time between 630 and 612 BC. She was an aristocrat who married a prosperous merchant, and she had a daughter named Cleis. Her wealth afforded her with the opportunity to live her life as she chose, and she chose to spend it studying the arts on the isle of Lesbos.

In the seventh century BC, Lesbos was a cultural center. Sappho spent most her time on the island, though she also traveled widely throughout Greece. She was exiled for a time because of political activities in her family, and she spent this time in Sicily. By this time she was known as a poet, and the residents of Syracuse were so honored by her visit that they erected a statue to her...

This site includes Sappho's poetry:

• "I have not had one word from her" (tr. Mary Barnard)
• "Please" (tr. Paul Roche)
• "On the throne of many hues, Immortal Aphrodite" (tr. Diane Rayor)
• "To Andromeda" (tr. Jim Powell)
• "Some an army of horsemen, some an army on foot" (tr. Josephine Balmer)
• To Atthis (tr. Willis Barnstone)

Sappho

From Lesvos Island, Tufts University, © George Asimellis

Excerpt:

Sappho, the woman associated the most with the word lesbian was born in Erressos in 612 B.C. She was regarded as a great lyric poetess. Plato calls her "the tenth muse".

She founded a school in Mytilene, devoted to the education of girls, where she taught music, poetry and etiquette... 

The Sappho Project

Pamela Barnes, Director

Sappho Resources from Perseus

Sappho and the World of Lesbian Poetry

By William Harris, Prof. Em. Middlebury College

Excerpt:

When we speak of Sappho, the poet from the island of Lesbos, and her poetry, we are thinking of something very special, a transcendental kind of poetry which is somehow purer, fairer, lovelier than anything else in the Western world. Considering how little we know about the poet herself, and how little we have of the remains of her poetry, we might well ask ourselves if we are not participating in a literary myth, creating a poet-figure of such great talent with so little verse, that one can only admire from a vast distance...

Sappho the Eressia

From Tufts University

Facts are scant and contradictory concerning the life of Sappho, the greatest of the early Greek lyric poets, whom Plato called "the tenth Muse." She was born in either Eressos or Mytilini on the Greek island of Lesvos into an aristrocratic, socially prominent family, and was orphaned at the age of six. Her father, Skamandronymous, is believed to have been a prosperous wine merchant. The eldest of her three brothers, Charaxos, was a wine merchant as well, and another brother, Larichos, held the prestigious job of wine pourer for the Mytileneans at their town hall. Sappho had a daughter, Cleis, named after her mother according to the tradition of the time; the child's father may have been a wealthy merchant named Cercylas. Some sources claim that Cercylas was her husband and died when Sappho was about thirty-five. Sappho lived mainly in Mytilini but was exiled to Sicily for a time, probably because of her family's political activities. She is reputed to have been short and dark-haired in an era when the feminine ideal was tall and fair-haired. Although her romantic preference was for women, she is said to have had male as well as female lovers, including the poet Alcaeus. Legend has it that she threw herself off a cliff for the unrequited love of a man named Phaon, but this is generally considered by scholars to be untrue...