Veronica A Shoffstall - poet? who she?

[paulhackett]

I was reading the Gene Wilder autobio (don't ask) and this poem is in it.. but I can't find out anything more.. I'm not even sure it may just be shit, but obviously it touched something.. does anyone know anything about her?

After a While

After a while you learn
The subtle difference between
Holding a hand and chaining a soul
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
That kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes ahead
With the grace of a woman
Not the grief of a child

And you learn
To build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is
Too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way
Of falling down in mid flight

After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns if you get too much
So you plant your own garden
And decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers

And you learn
That you really can endure
That you are really strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and you learn
With every good bye you learn.

 

[Santino]

I think it's a translation of a poem by Jorge Luis Borges.

 

[Jonti]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspectivass/3586228906/

Después de un tiempo,
uno aprende la sutil diferencia
entre sostener una mano
y encadenar un alma,
y uno aprende que el amor
no significa acostarse
y una compañía no significa seguridad
y uno empieza a aprender.
Que los besos no son contratos y los regalos no son promesas
y uno empieza a aceptar sus derrotas con la cabeza alta y los ojos abiertos y uno aprende a construir todos sus caminos en el hoy,
porque el terreno de mañana
es demasiado inseguro para planes...
y los futuros tienen una forma de caerse en la mitad.
Y después de un tiempo
uno aprende que si es demasiado,
hasta el calorcito del sol quema.
Así que uno planta su propio jardín
y decora su propia alma, en lugar
de esperar a que alguien le traiga flores. Y uno aprende que realmente puede aguantar, que uno realmente es fuerte,
que uno realmente vale, y uno aprende y aprende...
y con cada día uno aprende.

Jorge Luis Borges

 

[paulhackett]

Thank you so much! I feel slightly duped, there was no reference to Borges..

 

[Jonti]

This internet thread from emule's poetry forum is destined to be an internet classic

http://www.emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?4,27156,40760

Folks turn up claiming to be the true author, to have copyright on the work, or confidently claiming to know the poem's true providence, yet Borges' (1899 – 1986) name is never mentioned.

Instead, there is much sage advice about the need to copyright one's work, the better to defeat the plagiarist

 

[paulhackett]

Thanks again.

That's outrageous, and rather taints what I thought was just a nice little piece.

You should post the original up there and shame these people (some 5 years later as a bump).

 

[Fictionist]

It isn't great poetry to be sure. Best to concentrate on his short fictional work.

 

[ClawsOut]

Possible plagiarism from Veronica Shoffstall

My former INSIGNIFICANT OTHER, Jay Brown, aka Everett Raymond Brown jr, profiled on womansavers.com (see Chevy Chase, MD, and Manassas, VA); see dontdatehimgirl.com profiles on him; see profiles about him (use the Advanced Search feature) on the Don't Date This Guy web site, under the name, JAY BROWN (the name people most know him by.) I noticed, when I lived with him, that he had hand-written a poem, that I first thought came from Veronica Shoffstall. He might have obtained it from his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or from his former therapist (the one he saw before and while first dating me)..so that poem might have been used as a "Co-dependency Theory" example for "recovery" purposes. Point is...my ex was, in my opinion, a SEX ADDICT, who advertised, in 2000, on a swingers' site, as BISEXUAL, seeking bisexual sex, to my shock. So...judge for yourself. Do you, or do you not think that sex addicts and frauds will use whatever poem, theory, tenet, philosophy, or whatever..to con or represent, to others, to convince them that they are someone other than the person initially represented?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

"fuck off you weirdo nobody cares"?

 

[codectified]

Hello, registered just to bump this. Many thanks for the clarification and the credit to Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges.

I also wanted to note that the original poem does not have the lines:

"With the grace of a woman
Not the grief of a child"

As far as I can tell, anyway.