Plant an Idea

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Plant an Idea © Ron Villejo

It's Raining in Dubai!

It's Raining in Dubai!, by Ron Villejo

From "Uno Apprende" to "After A While"

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I stumbled onto this poem on Google+, and was not only moved but also piqued.  So I Googled the poet's name.  The fact that I had difficult finding out anything about her was the first tipoff that something was wrong with this picture.  I did manage to find this, though:

Veronica Shoffstall

Then, this:

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?

Reference: Veronica A Shoffstall - poet? who she?

The first reply to Paul Hackett's query was:

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

The poem has apparently had various titles, so another reader asked: Does anyone know the author of Comes The Dawn?

My mother gave me a beuatiful poems many years ago, but the author is not noted. The poem is titled...Comes The Dawn....

Most search engines have brought about reqest for the author, but not a title or word reference. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you

To which someone replied quickly:

Veronica A. Shoffstall
from 1971
the title is After a while

I got this email from Veronica, years ago,
who was kind enough to answer me,
as I wanted to know whether the title was 'Comes dawn'-
as quote often it is quoted as such :

Hi Ilza,
I never titled it "Comes the Dawn" -
- that was something it picked up along the way.
I never WOULD have given it such a pretentious, flatulent title.
In fact, I never titled it at all,
but because I had to for registration purposes
( and also to combat all the bogus titles it has been given by others:
"Comes the Dawn", "Endurance", I can't even remember them all),
I call it "After a While".
But titles are not copyrighted,
so I can't really prevent people from calling it whatever they like,
and since it was published in the Ann Landers column as
"Comes the Dawn",
it's hard to get people to stop calling it that.

Ronnie

Ronnie is a nickname for Veronica.

Uno aprende 

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 que la 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 incierto 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 uno puede aguantar,
que uno realmente es fuerte,
que uno realmente vale,
y uno aprende y aprende…

y con cada día uno aprende.

Uno Apprende (literally, One Learns) is the poem by Jorge Luis Borjes, the Argentine writer, poet and translator.  From what Spanish I know, the poem I found on Google+ and on Ann Landers looks to be a really good translation.

I found this translation of You Learn, attributed to Borjes, in a blog called dissections.

Then I discovered this wonderful little homage to Borjes in an intriguing site called Rebelle Society.  Writer Andrea Balt speaks endearingly and lyrically about this poem:

I used to read more Borges in college. He was fond of libraries and cafés, so I am pretty sure I’ve met him at some point in a forgotten corner of Buenos Aires, buried in the smell of old, thick volumes of typewritten life… Considering, of course, that he died around the same time I was born. 

This is the type of poetry that the least cryptic and most enjoyable side of Borges whispers to me—not from the depths of a century-old library but from inside an even older, universal heart of sad joy.

Wait, there's more, from a blog called Comes the Dawn: About healing after divorce, which I believe was written by Linda Saxon Nix:

When I first read this poem, I was married. I didn't understand it,

nor did I like it. In fact, I really didn't like it.

It had no relevance to me. I was supposedly happily married at the time.

After my divorce, I began to understand it's meaning.

I came to realize that it is about inner strength, and learning that women

have to learn not to depend on a man, or anyone else, for their happiness

and fulfillment. I learned that in everyone's life there are good-byes

of one kind or another. We are always saying good-bye.

Spouses let us down; spouses disappoint us; spouses don't keep promises.

Spouses and other loved ones die.

Friends move away; friendships cool, and children grow up and leave home.

They begin their own lives and aren't so much a part of ours anymore.

Some stay close to us, live close to us; some don't.

Parents do the best they can, but most of us have some scars and issues from childhood.

Eventually, these scars leave us, also.

So,

we have to build our own world, plan our own lives, and learn not to

depend on anyone else except God. Most of all, we realize that we can survive

if we are strong. Then, anything that comes along share our lives

or to make us happier is icing on the cake.

Who really wrote "Comes the Dawn"???

It is an ongoing dispute.

I had first credited this poem it to Veronica Shofftall. I received an e-mail from someone telling me that Veronica wrote it. There have been several versions of this poem. Usually it is attributed to "Unknown" because there is no official copyright owned by anyone.

Before you write to tell me that this poem was written by Veronica Shofftall, please read an e-mail that I got from Judith Evans in September of 2004. Pay close attention to the wording and spelling.

"Just thought you'd like to know, Comes the Dawn (sometimes called "After a While", or "You Learn") was written by ME a loooong time ago. decades and decades! You see it in many forms, usually attributed to someone, often a "Veronica Shofftall" and supposedly even copyrighted by her. (She even included it in a self e-published collection called "Mirrors and Other Insults", which she then had to remove from the internet because. like, it's not written by her!) There are several "renditions". No doubt, someone picked it up and wanted to put there own spin on it. Odd. This is probably one of the most plagiarized poems in the world! And I didn't make a DIME off it!

This is the real rendition (as you can see, it actually has the phrase "comes the dawn" which V. S. didn't bother to include in her spin)"I was young and stupid. I let it get out in the public sector and kick myself in the behind every time I see it, or a rewritten version of it, being claimed by this person, that person or attributed to "Author Unknown". I don't know who Veronica Shofftall is (or any of the other people that may lay claim to it) but I have gotten tired of seeing her name (or theirs) all over my work. She needs to go write her own poem.

Not that it makes any difference now. I just wanted to let you know, for the record, 

because it was on your site."

Judith B. Evans

Now, before you believe that Judith Evans wrote it, read on.

Most recently I got an e-mail from a man named Lorenzo saying that Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), who was an Argentine writer and considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century, wrote a poem titled "Y Uno Aprende" which he says was translated by the others who claim it. 

On August 30, 2007, I got another e-mail saying Borges wrote it.

You can read a huge argument over who wrote it on

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

Personally, when I find that more than one person claims authorship,

I know that one of them is lying, so I don't credit anyone.

It amazes me that people can be such liars.

The mystery deepens. Since there is no proof, I say the author is Unknown and Unproven.

2012 - Update

Unbelievably, in October of 2012 I received another letter from Judith Evans, 

and I quote verbatim:

"Not all Plagiarism is intentional. I was shocked to find Luis Jorges poem and spent a few weeks scratching my head and trying to figure out where I had been exposed to it and never could figure it out. I can only assume that I read it or was other wise exposed when I was young and just didn’t remember where the words came from But I want you to know that I contacted as many people as I could remember or find to correct the information. because I was NOT the originator of that poem. I honestly thought I was. It had such a familiar sound. But then, truly gifted poems to speak to the soul in each of us. I am sorry I mislead you. It wasn’t intentional. I feel sad for Mr. Borges that this - Quite possibly one of the most beloved poems in the world – somehow became so detached From his name. What a person writes he/she should get credit for."

Actually, the only thing that matters is that the poem has been meaningful to hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and that should be enough credit for the real author.

Moral: If you write something prophetic, get it copyrighted.

I suppose if one could ever discern how prophetic his or her poetry truly is, that is, from the get-go, then one could get it copyrighted.  That said, I marvel at how a poem can go viral, and be meaningful to hundreds of thousands of people.  

How, in addition, the best and the worst of people can show itself along the way.  Maybe Shoffstall did translate the Borjes poem, and laid rightfully claim to the translation.  Maybe Evans wrote honestly about what she believed in her claim and then disclaimer.  

Or maybe Shoffstall and Evans were simply lying.  

How Poetry Has Evolved Online

What if the poetic has left the poem in the same way that Elvis has left the building? Long after the limo pulled away, the audience was still in the arena screaming for more, but poetry escaped out the backdoor and onto the Internet, where it is taking on new forms that look nothing like poetry. Poetry as we know it—sonnets or free verse on a printed page—feels akin to throwing pottery or weaving quilts, activities that continue in spite of their cultural marginality. But the Internet, with its swift proliferation of memes, is producing more extreme forms of modernism than modernism ever dreamed of.

Reference: The Writer as Meme Machine, by Kenneth Goldsmith.

I was schooled in poetry as something you read in a book and something you wrote on a printed page.  Until just a few years ago, I wrote poetry in a notebook, that is, hand-wrote it.  It wasn't difficult, though, to word-process my poems, as Microsoft Word set up a white blank page for me to type on.  At the end of the day, it was still old school.

Four years ago, two colleagues introduced me to kinetic poetry: The first video above is an example.  I was duly intrigued.  It was too costly to arrange for someone to do that for my poetry, so I shelved the idea.  I did begin to upload my poetry onto Facebook, but found its formatting limited and archaic.  The fact that I couldn't even indent or italicize annoyed me.

Then, two years ago I began to create videos of me reciting mine and others' poetry.  I navigated this transition well enough, but in truth I was reluctant to lose the integrity of poetry on the printed page, especially format and font.  Gladly, though, I accepted the need to re-imagine poetry.  If I were in fact going to present it in multimedia, then I needed to let my creativity, and the exigency of the medium, evolve how I presented it.

The second video prompts a collaboration between poetry and animation.  In the third video, you see how I navigate the print of my poem on PowerPoint and Movie Maker, and more importantly how René Magritte paintings, and René Magritte himself, were integral to my poem's creative evolution.

In the article I referenced, Goldsmith asks, How has the internet altered poetry?

Explore the answer.  Be creative in your evolution.

Summer, by Heather Christle

Today you find yourself guilty
as the rim you split
an egg against
You press charges
You spell out your name
like the letters are medals
for good conduct in a bad war
The night moves in with you
into your room
until even your sleep
is not your own
Through the window
the grass tells you
to give up
and you are trying
but on the other hand
things keep you:
the moon, the cars, cars
You undress yourself
more deeply down
like this is the way
to get to the future
You let the darkness
medically examine you
So much can’t be
put back together
To burn the house down
to burn the house up
It’s the same problem
in any direction
You’re matter
You turn on the light

Summer, by Heather Christle

As I read this poem, "The Summer of `42" came to mind, and in particular I heard the wistful, reminiscent love theme by Michel Legrand.

Heather Christle

Vessels, by Paisley Rekdal

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Shouldn’t it ache, this slit
into the sweet
and salt mix of  waters 

comprising the mussel,
its labial meats
winged open: yellow- 

fleshed, black and gray
around the tough
adductor? It hurts 

to imagine it, regardless
of the harvester’s
denials, swiveling 

his knife to make
the incision: one
dull cyst nicked 

from the oyster’s
mantle — its thread of red
gland no bigger 

than a seed
of  trout roe — pressed
inside the tendered 

flesh. Both hosts eased
open with a knife
(as if anything 

could be said to be eased
with a knife):
so that one pearl 

after another can be
harvested, polished,
added to others 

until a single rope is strung
on silk. Linked
by what you think 

is pain. Nothing
could be so roughly
handled and yet feel 

so little, your pity
turned into part of this
production: you 

with your small,
four-chambered heart,
shyness, hungers, envy: what 

could be so precious
you’d cleave
another to keep it 

close? Imagine
the weeks it takes to wind
nacre over the red 

seed placed at the other
heart’s mantle.
The mussel 

become what no one
wants to:
vessel, caisson, wounded 

into making us
the thing we want
to call beautiful.

Vessels, by Paisley Rekdal

Paisley Rekdal

Growing a Bear, by Hannah Gamble

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Growing a bear — a midnight occupation,
the need for which you perhaps first realized
when you saw the wrong kind of shadow

under your chin — a convex when you expected
concave, so now it’s clear
you’re getting older. Your wife was in the shower

and you wanted to step inside
and soap her up like you did in college when she said

“I’ll shower with you, but I’m leaving
my underwear on,” and you enjoyed her
in every way you could enjoy a person with soap.

You didn’t join your wife in the shower.
She’s gotten funny about letting you see her
shave her legs or wash herself anywhere.

You think she read it somewhere — 
that letting your husband see you pluck anything,
trim anything, apply medicine to anything,
will make him feel like he’s furniture.

It’s exactly on cold nights like these that the basement
is not as forbidding as it should be, despite the fact
that you have to put gloves on
in what is part of  your own home.

Downstairs, a large bathtub, kept, for some reason,
after remodeling. It is there that your bear will be grown,
by you, though you have no idea how. Probably wishing

is most of it; fertilizer, chunks of raw stew meat,
handfuls of  blackberries, two metal rakes, and a thick rug
make up the rest. Then water.

You get an e-mail from a friend late at night
saying he can’t sleep. You write back
“I hope you feel sleepy soon” and think how childish
the word “sleepy” is. And you’re a man,
older than most of  the people you see on television.

You haven’t even considered how your wife will feel
when you have finished growing your bear. You could
write a letter to her tonight, explaining how your life
was just so lacking in bear:

“Janet, it’s nothing you’ve done — 
clearly you have no possible way of supplying me with a bear
or any of the activities I might be able to enjoy
after acquiring the bear.”

It might just be best
to keep the two worlds separate.
Janet clearly prefers things to be comfortable
and unchallenging. Janet soaps herself up. Janet puts herself
to bed, and you just happen to be next to her.

You go on your weekly bike ride with Mark and tell him
that you’ve been growing a bear. An eighteen-wheeler
flies by and he doesn’t seem to hear you — 
plus he’s focused on the hill.

You think about how not all friends know
what each other sounds like when struggling and
breathing heavy. Past the age of college athletics,
most friends don’t even know what each others’ bodies
look like, flushed, tired, showering, cold.

Growing a Bear, by Hannah Gamble

Hannah Gamble

And Day Brought Back My Night, by Geoffrey Brock

It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn't matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn't have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless. 

I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys
Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work
And started in: Item: It's years, not days.
Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn't back,
In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you
Left her, remember? I did? I did. (I do.)

And Day Brought Back my Night, by Geoffrey Brock.

Brock writes a very well-crafted sonnet - Shakespearean, in fact. This is the marvel of meter: Note how the rhymes in the first stanza are the same words, as if to convey that the speaker and his lover mirror one another perfectly.

As reality sets in: Note how the rhymes are suddenly off-track in the second stanza.  Which is to say that the perfectly mirrored rhymes in the first stanza are simply in his wistful imagination.  He may see the two of them together again, but in actually he is simply looking at himself in the mirror.  

The final couplet is also noteworthy. There is severe enjambment in the penultimate line: you (meaning the speaker) dangles in space, abruptly removed from its verb and object. Still, there is saving grace in poetry, especially with such a venerable form as a sonnet: The couplet is not a mirrored rhyme, but simply a familiar, solid one.

Lastly, the way Brock enunciates (I do.) in the video sounds like adieu.  Which makes it an even more brilliant sonnet, truly!

Geoffrey Brock

At a Dinner Party, by Amy Levy

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With fruit and flowers the board is decked,
     The wine and laughter flow;
I'll not complain--could one expect
     So dull a world to know?

You look across the fruit and flowers,
     My glance your glances find.--
It is our secret, only ours,
     Since all the world is blind.

At a Dinner Party, by Amy Levy

Lynn Paden posted this poem on Google+.

As One Put Drunk, by John Ashbery

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I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.
Elsewhere we are as sitting in a place where sunlight
Filters down, a little at a time,
Waiting for someone to come. Harsh words are spoken,
As the sun yellows the green of the maple tree.

So this was all, but obscurely
I felt the stirrings of new breath in the pages
Which all winter long had smelled like an old catalog.
New sentences were starting up. But the summer
Was well along, not yet past the mid-point
But full and dark with the promise of that fullness,
That time when one can no longer wander away
And even the least attentive fall silent
To watch the thing that is prepared to happen.

A look of glass stops you
And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?
Did they notice me, this time, as I am,
Or is it postponed again? The children
Still at their games, clouds that arise with a swift
Impatience in the afternoon sky, then dissipate
As limpid, dense twilight comes.
Only in that tooting of a horn
Down there, for a moment, I thought
The great, formal affair was beginning, orchestrated,
Its colors concentrated in a glance, a ballade
That takes in the whole world, now, but lightly,
Still lightly, but with wide authority and tact.

The prevalence of those gray flakes falling?
They are sun motes. You have slept in the sun
Longer than the sphinx, and are none the wiser for it.
Come in. And I thought a shadow fell across the door
But it was only her come to ask once more
If I was coming in, and not to hurry in case I wasn't.

The night sheen takes over. A moon of Cistercian pallor
Has climbed to the center of heaven, installed,
Finally involved with the business of darkness.
And a sigh heaves from all the small things on earth,
The books, the papers, the old garters and union-suit buttons
Kept in a white cardboard box somewhere, and all the lower
Versions of cities flattened under the equalizing night.
The summer demands and takes away too much,
But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.

As One Put Drunk into the Packet Boat, by John Ashbery.

Poems by Wang Wei and Rainer Maria Rilke

The highest peak scrapes the sky blue ;
It extends from hills to the sea.
When I look back , clouds shut the view ;
When I come near , no mist I see.
Peaks vary in north and south side ;
Vales differ in sunshine or shade.
Seeking a lodge where to abide ,
I ask a woodman when I wade.

From "Mount Eternal South," by Wang Wei

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how space dilates with each breath of yours.
Among the rafters of dark belfries peal
your own sweet tones. Your predators 

will grow strong upon such fare.
Know transformation in its varied sign.
Which experience produces most despair?
If drinking offend, transform yourself to wine. 

Be, in this immensity of night,
the magic force at your sense’s crossroad;
the purpose of their mysterious plan. 

And though you fade from earthly sight,
declare to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water say: I am.

From "Sonnets to Orpheus," Book II, No. 29, by Rainer Maria Rilke

Xia Yu does a fine job of dramatizing the poems, but Keanu Reeves may simply be unaccustomed to poetry readings.  Chang Jing adds sweet music to the readings via a string instrument.  This staging is part of what I envision with Poetry in Multimedia:  cross art collaboration, using different media.  

Here is Rilke's sonnet in German:  

Stiller Freund der vielen Fernen, fühle,
wie dein Atem noch den Raum vermehrt.
Im Gebälk der finstern Glockenstühle
laß dich läuten. Das, was an dir zehrt, 

wird ein Starkes über dieser Nahrung.
Geh in der Verwandlung aus und ein.
Was ist deine leidenste Erfahrung?
Ist dir Trinken bitter, werde Wein. 

Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne,
ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn. 

Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß,
zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne.
Zu dem raschen Wasser sprich: Ich bin.

Plus Howard Landman's translation:

Still friend of many distances, feel how
your breath increases space even now.
In the timber-frames of shadowy bell towers
let yourself ring. That which saps your powers 

grows ever stronger from this sustenance.
Through transformation, cross the borderline.
What's your most sorrowful experience?
If drinking you is bitter, turn to wine. 

Be, in this night of extravagances,
magics at the crossroads of your senses,
the sense they oddly all cohere. 

And when the world no longer knows
you, to the still earth say: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I'm here.

Reference:  Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29.

Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, by Francesco Petrarca

Lina Bolzoni, Professor of Italian Literature, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, and Global Distinguished Professor of Italian Studies, New York University 

Explore the ways poets and painters from Petrarch onward have competed to create portraits capable of revealing the hidden secrets of the heart.

My recitation 

My recitation

Reference:  Poetry and Portraits in the Renaissance.

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

This scene is the most stirring in a stirring drama that I have loved for years.  It was a handful of years after I watched "Dead Poets Society" that I learned "O Captain! My Captain" to be a poem by Walt Whitman and the poem to be about the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                    But O heart! heart! heart!
                      O the bleeding drops of red,
                        Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                          Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                    Here Captain! dear father!
                      The arm beneath your head!
                        It is some dream that on the deck,
                          You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
                    Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
                      But I with mournful tread,
                       Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                         Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman