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This is the three-year journey of an aspiring writer from his earliest attempts to finish his first novella to the book launch. Among other things found along the way in the meantime :)

Wordless Wednesday: Chez Julien

>> Wednesday, 28 March 2012

My niece, Júlia, posing in front of Chez Julien. Paris, december 2011.
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"True Love" by Wisława Szymborska

>> Wednesday, 21 March 2012

Sometimes I wish my blog was an anthology of poems worth reading, seasoned with wise and subtle comments. So far, I've just worked on the anthology. Have a nice World Poetry Day — and a great start to Spring :)

True Love 


True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical? 

What does the world get from two people 

who exist in a world of their own? 



Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason, 

drawn randomly from millions but convinced 

it had to happen this way - in reward for what? 

    For nothing. 

The light descends from nowhere. 

Why on these two and not on others? 

Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does. 

Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts. 



Look at the happy couple. 

Couldn't they at least try to hide it, 

fake a little depression for their friends' sake? 

Listen to them laughing - it's an insult. 

The language they use - deceptively clear. 

And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines - 

it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example. 

What could religion and poetry count on? 

What would be remembered? What renounced? 

Who'd want to stay within bounds? 



True love. Is it really necessary? 

Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence, 

like a scandal in Life's highest circles. 

Perfectly good children are born without its help. 

It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely. 



Let the people who never find true love 

keep saying that there's no such thing. 



Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
 Wisława SZYMBORSKA. Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw BARANCZAK and Clare CAVANAGH.

You can find more renowned poems by late Wisława Szymborska, such as "Cat in an Empty Apartment", here.

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Catalan Poetry Online

>> Saturday, 17 March 2012

As a prelude to World Poetry Day, which is held every March 21, today we celebrate the Catalan Poetry on the Internet Day. This is my bit to help fill the social networks and the Internet in general of Catalan poetry, at least for one day.

Tota amor és latent en l'Altra amor,
tot llenguatge és saó d'una parla comuna,
tota terra batega a la pàtria de tots.


Each love is latent in the Other love, every language is the seasoning of a common speech, each land beats in the heart of the homeland belonging to us all.

Josep Vicenç FOIX. From Readings of J. V. Foix. An Anthology (with English Prose Tranlations) edited by Arthur Terry

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