firecat

And she writes about it brilliantly, as she writes about so many things.

http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2013/06/10/the-diminished-thing/

Excerpt (but this isn't the best part. Go read the whole thing. And definitely read the poem she uses as a frame):

Americans believe strongly in positive thinking. Positive thinking is great. It works best when based on a realistic assessment and acceptance of the actual situation. Positive thinking founded on denial may not be so great. (Like, look at Lance Armstrong.)

Everybody who gets old has to assess their ever-changing but seldom improving situation and make of it what they can. I think most old people accept the fact that they’re old — I’ve never heard anybody over eighty say “I’m not old.” And they make the best of it. As the saying goes: Consider the alternative!

A lot of younger people, seeing the reality of old age as entirely negative, see acceptance of age as negative. Wanting to deal with old people in a positive spirit, they’re led to deny old people their reality.

(via Body Impolitic)

While I have translations on my mind, within is a table containing the original and three translations of the poem "Der Schwan" by Rainer Maria Rilke. ( it is very wide )

My friend serene has a wonderful ear for words, which she uses to select work for her fine publication, 42 Magazine. I won't deny I am saying that in part because she likes to publish my poetry. :) But words from every page of the latest issue of 42 Magazine pounced on me as I turned the pages.

"Before Kaveri started to die she lived briefly like a flowering cactus, all thorns and ablaze with colors." ("One Step One Step and a Limp," Smriti Ravindra)

"I must insist on appropriate attire for dinner," Whistler's mother clucked. ("Inside Out," Hall Jameson)

"After he ate salad your father was coaxed out of the kitchen and into a van by a preacher named Rodney." ("Things that Came Out of the Kitchen," Grace Maselli)

"'pretty' is a word you can hit with a stone to watch it crumple and tear" ("The Wasp Garden," Story Boyle)

"A billboard pasted to the window read, 'Every book ever published in stock.'" ("Bibliopolis," Frank Roger)

"The house is quiet but never silent." ("Nothing Here Can Wash Away," Amanda England)

"Fragrant as a bee's buzz." ("Lemonovember," Daniel Ari)

"She reaches out—a slash of arm through air—and misses her target." ("Four Minutes," Jennifer Stern)

"The fog rests on the asphalt, our houses a collection of gables and shingles in the Savannah mist." ("Betty's Branch," Linda Heuring)

"Her bones would probably crunch like a cricket shell
but I doubt her marrow could be as silvery" ("Cosmovore Meets Her Antithesis," Kristi Carter)

"Theresa wanders into the swamplands in her dreams. Sometimes she is on a bicycle" ("Notes on a Father," Jenny Maloney)

My friend ljgeoff, in a flocked post, quoted a piece of a poem titled "Under One Small Star," by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska and translated by Stanislaw Branczak and Clare Cavanagh. It goes like this:

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologise for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologise to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.

Here is the whole poem by those translators:
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/10/under-one-small-star-wislawa-szymborska.html

And here's a translation of the same poem by Joanna Trzeciak:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20451

I love this. I looked her up, and what do you know, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996 at the age of 73. Maybe I shouldn't call myself a poetry aficionado if I didn't know that already.
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The .doc File of J. Alfred Prufrock.

http://copperbadge.dreamwidth.org/305346.html

Who's doing NaPoWriMo this year? The goal is to write 30 poems by the end of April. Last year I only wrote 9, but that's probably 9 more than I would have written if I hadn't participated.

(If you are wondering where poems 1 and 2 went, they are friends-locked.)

I didn't expect to be inspired to participate in elisem's "Nine Things About Oracles" project but after I had gotten a few lines written on this one I realized that was what it was about, and added the title. I'm not entirely happy with it yet, but here's where it stands for now.
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For folks reading this who have had their poetry published - where do you submit your poetry (and, for extra credit, why there)?

Over at poets_challenge the challenge was to write a Rhyme Royal. I tried.
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