Poem-A-Day: Avoid Adapting Other People's Negative Views by Sharon Dolin

November 6, 2013 Avoid Adapting Other People's Negative Views by Sharon Dolin   after Epictetus   To gaze upon the fatal without commiserating gloom:   what every friend should be-- not one who rends her coat of doom   nor one who lets her ankle rankle nor her dogged love to the hounds.             Be the cat in catastrophe who survives eight more dives.   Though in the clutch of damage a dame must age,   in the crazy-quilt of guilt it was never your fault.   In the company of morose always pull out the rose.            Copyright © 2013 by Sharon Dolin. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "'Avoid Adapting Other People's Negative Views' is one of the final poems in a 24-poem series entitled A Manual for Living, based on the Stoic philosopher Epictetus's posthumous self-help guide of the same name. The title is taken from Sharon Lebell's contemporary demotic translation. This particular poem exhibits a magical faith in language, drawing on the word game I used to play as a child of making words out of the letters of other words. By peering in and listening carefully enough to the constituent letters of words, other words arise, which this poem uses as clues for how to live."   --Sharon Dolin Most Recent Book by Dolin Whirlwind (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012)           Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.     Sharon Dolin is the author of numerous books of poems, including Whirlwind (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012). She directs the Center for Book Arts Annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition and teaches at The New School and the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City.   Related Poems The Composition of the Text by Adriano Spatola Series by Geoffrey G. O'Brien Poem by James Schuyler __________________________ Love reading Poem-A-Day? Help support it today.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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