REELY'S POETRY BLOG

In the process of adding more Spanish poetry to Reely’s Poetry Pages, I came across the mystery of the poem Instantes:

Admittedly, I don’t know a whole lot of Spanish so I must rely on my browser’s translation to whatever extent I can make sense of it. So, forgive me for any mistakes or misconceptions, but from what I’ve been able to glean from this Spanish article: Jorge Luis Borges, Autor del Poema Instantes, there are 2 main claims to authorship for the poem Instantes when it is attributed to Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges.

Pick More Daisies is a very similar prose piece, the author of which was Don Herold. This piece was published in the Readers Digest in 1953.

Then there is the contention that a woman in Kentucky named Nadine Stair wrote it and the title was “If I Had My Life to Live Over.” The first known publication appears to have been March 27, 1978. (The translated page says it was in Family Circus, which I am guessing is Family Circle magazine since the only Family Circus I know about is a cartoon). But, tellingly perhaps, the Stair piece ends with “I’d pick more daisies.”

The article also details an investigation into the existence of Nadine Stair, the results of which apparently showed she never existed, but that the woman who was credited with the poem was really named Nadine Strain. It is concluded that both the piece attributed to Borges and the one credited to Stair / Strain are adapted (putting it charitably) from the Herold piece, although it is speculated that Mr. Herold may have gotten his own inspiration from an earlier writing himself, since there appears to be some quote marks after the title around the first line.

Here’s yet another one online “I’d Pick More Daisies” credited to an ‘anonymous’ friar in Nebraska, Brother Jeremiah.

There are many versions online simply attributed to ‘anonymous.’

Confused? Me, too. All the same, the whole affair leaves me with these questions:

If it was an English piece to begin with, who really translated it into Spanish?

If it was in Spanish first, why didn’t whoever translated it into English make the title “Moments”? The browser translation does and methinks that kinda sounds better. Oh, wait … Read the rest of this entry »