# Veronica A Shoffstall - poet? who she?



## paulhackett (Jun 24, 2009)

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.


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## Santino (Jun 25, 2009)

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


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## Jonti (Jun 25, 2009)

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


> Después de un tiempo,
> uno aprende la sutil diferencia
> entre sostener una mano
> y encadenar un alma,
> ...


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## paulhackett (Jun 25, 2009)

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


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## Jonti (Jun 25, 2009)

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


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## paulhackett (Jun 26, 2009)

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).


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## Fictionist (Jun 26, 2009)

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


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## ClawsOut (Nov 23, 2009)

*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?


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## FridgeMagnet (Nov 23, 2009)

"fuck off you weirdo nobody cares"?


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## codectified (Jun 12, 2014)

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.


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