Plagiarism and The Poet by Michele Brenton
Plagiarism and the poet.
My first introduction to the concept of plagiarism was when I was about ten and in one of my favourite childhood books - Jennings & Darbishire by Anthony Buckeridge.
The eponymous (my big word for the day) Jennings & Darbishire decided to become magazine proprietors and in an attempt to inject some enthusiasm for literature in their fellow boarding school chums held two competitions: one for handwriting and one for poetry. A handwriting entry ended up in the poetry competition pile and The Form Three Times Prize for Poetry was therefore awarded to Venables for a piece called Break, Break, Break:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Instantly recognisable to anyone with any poetry knowledge as having been written of course by the inimitable Alfred, Lord Tennyson - or Alfred Lord as the boys refer to him. When they discover their friend Venables has apparently passed off this classic work as his own creation they are understandably angry. Eventually the misunderstanding is cleared up and harmony restored.
The University of North Carolina's definition of plagiarism is the one I like best as being clear and comprehensive - At UNC, plagiarism is defined as "the deliberate or reckless representation of another's words, thoughts, or ideas as one's own without attribution..."
The nearest experience I have to my work being plagiarised was in 2009 when I discovered my Cauliflower Soup poem had been reproduced in a forum without being attributed to me. The poster was not pretending to have written it themselves but was sharing it with others because he'd made the soup from the recipe in the poem and it had turned out so well he'd wanted to share it with his forum pals!
All the same IP rights should not be squandered and if you knowingly allow them to be over-ridden without comment, then you lose them. So it was necessary to do something. So I wrote this:
Some SAP 'Stole' my Soup.
A poet's life is very hard
unless you write for greetings cards.
It's all about structure simplicity grammar,
a bit like being a computer programmer.
So when I sit and write an ode
it's a bit like writing a piece of code,
except the pay is not as fine,
but at least I can say, 'That work is mine'
So when it's 'stole' it isn't funny.
Apart from the dubious question of money
it's enough to make me groan,
"Come on you SAP that work's my own"
I don't want to get anyone in the soup
or make you jump through a fiery hoop,
but if you copy a poem or sonnet?,
make sure that the name of the writer is on it.
by Michele Brenton aka banana_the_poet
This I sent to the admin of the forum in question; one for SAP (a programming language) professionals.
Then when that didn't work I wrote this:
Hello Amit,
I am flattered you liked my poem so much that you quoted it in its entirety on the SAP forum - but it would have been more flattering if you had acknowledged its source.
I respectfully request that you please add the source of the poem to your post, or delete it, whichever you prefer as at the moment strictly speaking you are infringing my intellectual property rights as the original author of the work.
I am currently putting together a poetry book for publishing and this poem is to be included.
The correct source is written by Michele Brenton/banana the poet and the poetry blog it resides in is http://pooetry4fun.blog.co.uk
The direct link is here:
http://poetry4fun.blog.co.uk/2009/02/25/delicious-cheap-secret-soup-recipe-shhhhh-5646712/
I am sure this was just an oversight and in the hope it can be resolved quickly and amicably, I have dedicated the poem to you in the book as follows:
For Amit - who liked this so much he 'stole' it.
best regards,
Michele Brenton aka banana the poet
The gentleman in question replied promptly with a link to the forum where he had added the attribution and with a hope that the dedication still stood. The poem Cauliflower soup c'est delicieux can be found on page 53 of the yellow edition of Alternative Poetry Books by Michele Brenton ISBN 978-1-907375-00-2 and at the bottom is the dedication as promised.
Deliberate plagiarism in the electronic age is easier than ever. But why would a person want to pass off somebody else's poetry as their own?
For financial gain.
For most poets the likelihood of someone deriving financial gain by plagiarising their work is minimal but it does happen. In 2009 The Daily Telegraph published an article by David Barratt, Home Affairs correspondent: "A project to encourage prisoners to explore their inner self through verse has suffered a setback after inmates were caught plagiarising poems in a bid to win a £25 prize."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5995899/Prison-poets-caught-in-plagiarism-bid.html
For improvement in personal standing.
A Twitter user of course gains standing by being retweeted and by producing content that others enjoy reading. One of my Tweets runs thus:
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research. To steal a quote is standard Twitter protocol.
It is only partly tongue in cheek.
Sadly when a poet's work is plagiarised it can have a very traumatic effect on them. Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik dsw/Psychoanalyst is a writer and poet and she has this to say on the subject,
"Plagiarism, is a theft of self through the co-opting of one’s product of the mind. The response to such a threat will follow the dictates of an individual’s personality in terms of the manner in which they seek to re-establish a sense of inner stability, unlike a stolen object, the sense of violation of mind can often more closely parallel an assault to the body; such a threat to safety at the deepest level can create an inner instability. In an attempt to stabilize oneself, the injured party may react with a powerful desire for vengeance, a need for atonement, or on the other side of the spectrum even a distortion of their own actions going so far as to regain a sense of control through deciding that their own actions in fact, rather than the intentions of another might have in some way provoked the crime."
Fear of plagiarism is a very real threat to creativity. The anxiety surrounding copyrights and publishing rights evidences frequently in online poetry communities, with poets afraid to post finished work online. But luckily for those of us who love to read poetry hot off the keyboard most poets are prepared to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' a quote I took great pains to find out was first ascribed to Susan Jeffers.
My first introduction to the concept of plagiarism was when I was about ten and in one of my favourite childhood books - Jennings & Darbishire by Anthony Buckeridge.
The eponymous (my big word for the day) Jennings & Darbishire decided to become magazine proprietors and in an attempt to inject some enthusiasm for literature in their fellow boarding school chums held two competitions: one for handwriting and one for poetry. A handwriting entry ended up in the poetry competition pile and The Form Three Times Prize for Poetry was therefore awarded to Venables for a piece called Break, Break, Break:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Instantly recognisable to anyone with any poetry knowledge as having been written of course by the inimitable Alfred, Lord Tennyson - or Alfred Lord as the boys refer to him. When they discover their friend Venables has apparently passed off this classic work as his own creation they are understandably angry. Eventually the misunderstanding is cleared up and harmony restored.
The University of North Carolina's definition of plagiarism is the one I like best as being clear and comprehensive - At UNC, plagiarism is defined as "the deliberate or reckless representation of another's words, thoughts, or ideas as one's own without attribution..."
The nearest experience I have to my work being plagiarised was in 2009 when I discovered my Cauliflower Soup poem had been reproduced in a forum without being attributed to me. The poster was not pretending to have written it themselves but was sharing it with others because he'd made the soup from the recipe in the poem and it had turned out so well he'd wanted to share it with his forum pals!
All the same IP rights should not be squandered and if you knowingly allow them to be over-ridden without comment, then you lose them. So it was necessary to do something. So I wrote this:
Some SAP 'Stole' my Soup.
A poet's life is very hard
unless you write for greetings cards.
It's all about structure simplicity grammar,
a bit like being a computer programmer.
So when I sit and write an ode
it's a bit like writing a piece of code,
except the pay is not as fine,
but at least I can say, 'That work is mine'
So when it's 'stole' it isn't funny.
Apart from the dubious question of money
it's enough to make me groan,
"Come on you SAP that work's my own"
I don't want to get anyone in the soup
or make you jump through a fiery hoop,
but if you copy a poem or sonnet?,
make sure that the name of the writer is on it.
by Michele Brenton aka banana_the_poet
This I sent to the admin of the forum in question; one for SAP (a programming language) professionals.
Then when that didn't work I wrote this:
Hello Amit,
I am flattered you liked my poem so much that you quoted it in its entirety on the SAP forum - but it would have been more flattering if you had acknowledged its source.
I respectfully request that you please add the source of the poem to your post, or delete it, whichever you prefer as at the moment strictly speaking you are infringing my intellectual property rights as the original author of the work.
I am currently putting together a poetry book for publishing and this poem is to be included.
The correct source is written by Michele Brenton/banana the poet and the poetry blog it resides in is http://pooetry4fun.blog.co.uk
The direct link is here:
http://poetry4fun.blog.co.uk/2009/02/25/delicious-cheap-secret-soup-recipe-shhhhh-5646712/
I am sure this was just an oversight and in the hope it can be resolved quickly and amicably, I have dedicated the poem to you in the book as follows:
For Amit - who liked this so much he 'stole' it.
best regards,
Michele Brenton aka banana the poet
The gentleman in question replied promptly with a link to the forum where he had added the attribution and with a hope that the dedication still stood. The poem Cauliflower soup c'est delicieux can be found on page 53 of the yellow edition of Alternative Poetry Books by Michele Brenton ISBN 978-1-907375-00-2 and at the bottom is the dedication as promised.
Deliberate plagiarism in the electronic age is easier than ever. But why would a person want to pass off somebody else's poetry as their own?
For financial gain.
For most poets the likelihood of someone deriving financial gain by plagiarising their work is minimal but it does happen. In 2009 The Daily Telegraph published an article by David Barratt, Home Affairs correspondent: "A project to encourage prisoners to explore their inner self through verse has suffered a setback after inmates were caught plagiarising poems in a bid to win a £25 prize."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5995899/Prison-poets-caught-in-plagiarism-bid.html
For improvement in personal standing.
A Twitter user of course gains standing by being retweeted and by producing content that others enjoy reading. One of my Tweets runs thus:
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research. To steal a quote is standard Twitter protocol.
It is only partly tongue in cheek.
Sadly when a poet's work is plagiarised it can have a very traumatic effect on them. Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik dsw/Psychoanalyst is a writer and poet and she has this to say on the subject,
"Plagiarism, is a theft of self through the co-opting of one’s product of the mind. The response to such a threat will follow the dictates of an individual’s personality in terms of the manner in which they seek to re-establish a sense of inner stability, unlike a stolen object, the sense of violation of mind can often more closely parallel an assault to the body; such a threat to safety at the deepest level can create an inner instability. In an attempt to stabilize oneself, the injured party may react with a powerful desire for vengeance, a need for atonement, or on the other side of the spectrum even a distortion of their own actions going so far as to regain a sense of control through deciding that their own actions in fact, rather than the intentions of another might have in some way provoked the crime."
Fear of plagiarism is a very real threat to creativity. The anxiety surrounding copyrights and publishing rights evidences frequently in online poetry communities, with poets afraid to post finished work online. But luckily for those of us who love to read poetry hot off the keyboard most poets are prepared to 'feel the fear and do it anyway' a quote I took great pains to find out was first ascribed to Susan Jeffers.
