Delightful. It has a rhythm that reminds me of an English folk song and content that leaves a reader smiling - and aware of being given a neat lesson in the importance of life's simple pleasures.
Comment is about Praise His Name With Dancing (blog)
Original item by Dorinda MacDowell
Chilling and aware - an unsettling nod to our mortality, made even more interesting by the youthful image above the title. This could take its place in any ghost story worth the name!
Comment is about Mortality (blog)
Original item by Simon Austin
<Deleted User> (6895)
Tue 15th Jan 2013 18:12
You have us smiling again Steve.xx
Comment is about The Middle of The Night (blog)
Original item by Steve Higgins
It's literary sacrilege - plain and simple.
No need that anything should be personal, but this person should akin to a drugs cheat in the Olympics face a ban of some kind.
A 5 year ban from poetry competitions - with his name circulated and and maybe a 2 year ban from being accepted by publications...that would seem fair to me.
Thoughts?
I agree with Isobel in reference to Eliot...in terms of allusion and plagiarism. Eliot gave us allusion.
I read the argument posited by Christian. The idea that it was/would be ok because it was Eliot, or would be ok if it was a big name today. I don't buy/agree with that for a second.
When did Eliot or any big name copy a poem that has been clearly attributed to another person, erm - almost verbatim! That has never happened as far as I am aware. I would be more than interested to see such an example.
Allusion and plagiarism are usually easy to separate. Particularly derivative poems or poems that clearly lend line(s) or structure from world famous poems. They are obviously a different kettle of fish. I guess we all know the alternative version of Larkin's 'Let This Be Verse that came with the opening lines;
They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
That kind of poem clearly acknowledges it's origin and in effect lauds the original work.
I think things do get much stickier even with that type of 'use', if the poem in question is not famous. I think in that situation the onus lies with the poet; to clearly detail what is going on. If in print; maybe even place both poems alongside one another with accompanying credit.
One thing that is neither allusion nor mistake is copying someone else's poem almost word for word, stanza by stanza ;)
When you just happen ;) to do this and place 'it' in an envelope and, just happen to attach your 'own name' to the accompanying piece of paper. Something that just happens to claim ownership...
It doesn't matter where that has been forwarded - that is a theft of a sorts. If for monetary gain it constitutes fraud.
Nowt personal - just facts? - surely?
P.S
Funny how almost the only words changed between the two poems - were the exact ones that were required in order to change location and qualify for the competition. Mmmmm
Plagiarism is a serious accusation that should never be banded about without just cause and evidence, given mud sticks. But it should be used when the cause and evidence is clear and incontrovertible - it should then come with the heaviest (non personal) censure.
Comment is about Christian Ward's plagiarism 'mistakes' : is this no 4? (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
I'd agree with Julian and Steve. You've got a nice rythm going here Laura.
I love the traditional techniques like internal rhyme - I can really hear it in this. Even though it's a contemporary poem - it sounds poetic.
Comment is about Electric Blue (for Avital) (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
P.S. I think you did brilliantly with this article Greg. The tough thing with something like this is having the balls to write about it. It seems so inconceivable that I'd be frightened in case I'd got it wrong and the man was innocent!
Comment is about Christian Ward's plagiarism 'mistakes' : is this no 4? (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
What grabs me in all this, is how easily some poets seem to confuse 'allusion' with plagiarism. The Wasteland is stuffed full of allusion. I suppose you have to ask yourself at what point allusion becomes plagiarism - when it's copied word for word - with no additional symbolic meaning - for me.
And I wonder how many people manage to graduate in creative writing on the back of other people's work? You'd have to have very astute examiners and tutors to be able to pick out the plagiarists. And what happens when the plagiarists become lecturers and tutors?
Infamy! Infamy! - and that would be my favourite quote from a carry on film - not original thought :)
Comment is about Christian Ward's plagiarism 'mistakes' : is this no 4? (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Wonderful words, wonderful rhythm, wonderful poem. You're cooking with gas.
Comment is about Electric Blue (for Avital) (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Sorry to have missed it but events conspired. Interesting times. Damn those Chinese!
Comment is about Stockport Council; Museums & Cultural Attractions Consultation (blog)
Original item by Stockport WoL
I Shot The Sheriff
Wanted dead
or alive
saloon drunk
the deputy
threw me
in jail.
Hanged high
stirrups clicking
till neck
slowly snapped
body left
to rot.
Remains marked
wooden cross
rustler thief
law killer
top of
Dodge hill.
Comment is about Stockport Council; Museums & Cultural Attractions Consultation (blog)
Original item by Stockport WoL
Maggie wheelchair will travel
Good to see you
Notice put on lawn
No crumbs for you
New law passed through
States no feeding here!
Thanks for coming Gerald
Welcome to Stockport WOL
Comment is about Stockport WoL (group profile)
Original item by Stockport WoL
What a great meeting last night: WOL in Stockport just gets better and better...............
John, I do think it might be worth pursuing the Edgeley link here with the US one! - yes, I know, as I said, a long shot...........but perhaps worth a thought, especially bearing in mind that WOL are planning a wider group than just here in Britain...........could that all be tied up together? Anyway, do have a think and I won't DODGE the issue if help is needed along those lines (my sad attempt to make a play on words ie: Dodge Hill...........hmm.............)
OK I'm going I'm going.........love to all....D.
Comment is about Stockport Council; Museums & Cultural Attractions Consultation (blog)
Original item by Stockport WoL
I guess he didn't pick any of mine then ,,,
Comment is about Christian Ward's plagiarism 'mistakes' : is this no 4? (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Laura you are now officially my second favourite poem on this site- That is all.
Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)
Original item by Laura Taylor
tony sheridan
Tue 15th Jan 2013 00:08
Hi John. It takes something special to make me laugh out loud. Well done mate! Take care, Tony.
Comment is about Penis Penis (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
tony sheridan
Tue 15th Jan 2013 00:01
Soon to be part of the fabrics of time. Great line.! Great poem! Take care, Tony.
Comment is about Mortality (blog)
Original item by Simon Austin
It was Freda starting a discussion thread about it that alerted me, Julian - and Isobel before her - so they deserve the credit! Incidentally, the Guardian mentions Ward's former profile on Write Out Loud. Are we taking the view that all publicity is good publicity?
Comment is about Christian Ward's plagiarism 'mistakes' : is this no 4? (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
Well done getting this story up two days before the Guardian, Greg. Is that a scoop?
Comment is about Christian Ward's plagiarism 'mistakes' : is this no 4? (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
THIS?
#1 Rachel- ''I have my own genres.'' Tae Kwon Do or butchery may resolve your need for 'poeticide' ;o). I do re-read my own stuff regularly- and sometimes also feel a distance between 'us' both. Maybe that is the sign of nascent maturity?
10/01/12
#2 Rachel- re your post to myself; have you not considered that your poetry may be 'universal' and therefore have value to an unknown reader?
09/01/12
#3 poeticide is a good word. i keep the ones that are important. some get deletisized.the genre thing is really to say i have a distance from a lot of my subjects but make them personal. some turn out to be something i want to keep personal. sometimes i write for me. sometimes for others, but i agree that nascent maturity allows for me to see that sometimes what i write is an elaborate escape and sometimes i like to keep it real.
11/1/12
4# yes tommy i have thought about that and i agree, its really why i continue to post or write at all. however i also believe in the field of dreams...'build and they will come' only in this case instead of building a big baseball park i clear out my old poems to make way for the new. fresh ideas. in art i work sequentially, ideas build change and develop. with writing i like to write as if ive never written anything before. which is why some read like that. i like to write with different 'voices' from different perspectives and let styles work together. i have my own genres.
9/1/12
#5 'new me.' sometimes i read back old poems and they have become that. outdated thinking, old thought processes. i like to clear em out and start again with a fresh page hoping for inspiration. thanks for asking x
#6 tommy, its a tough one. i believe that if something is written and posted and it offends which all sorts of material is likely to do on all sorts of grounds..i think the writer should be held accountable to their readers as would be with published work. here a comments system operates.so if i were to offend i would personally feel obliged to defend, explain my writing. sometimes its an agree to differ situation. if someone were to post something inciting hatred be it racial, concerning disability, whatever i still beilieve it should stand and be criticised. As such it offers an exampler of its inadequacy as an idea. if someone were to post sexually inapropriate material i believe there should be a standard of censure based on the accessibility of this site to young people as a moral obligation.
concerning freedom of speech once blogged this goes out to the world potentially. Its a gift but just a medium. free media..is up for exploitation like anything else. I think we can only measure our own writing. I have only ever once been offended by a slight comment on this site and ive been a member for years. I think that a sign of its credibility and the level of responsibility of its writers.
Thanks for posting this.
8/10/11
Comment is about Rachel Bond (poet profile)
Original item by Rachel Bond
''MC. I suspect I sit a little left of you (though not as near the touchline as a lot of these barmpots!).'' HAHA
Comment is about WHERE ARE YOU GORDON BROWN? (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
hi tommy...now im sorry but you put an interesting comment on my profile and its been so long since i was on here that ive forgotten to which, what, who it refers?? please remind x
Comment is about Tommy Carroll (poet profile)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
You've done it again John. This will get some comments. Are you working your way through someone's 500 greatest hits?
Comment is about Penis Penis (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Thanks Yvonne - I guess that the "Creator" must have decided that love per se was not conducive to progress or else humans might be inclined to stay happy in a state of commonly enjoyed conviviality and go nowhere in the greater scheme of things. Would that be so bad, I ask?! Instead, we seem to have been programmed to have the capacity but not the total commitment...a sort of emotional half-way house of "one kiss forward...two kicks back"; and vice-versa.
Comment is about Yvonne Brunton (poet profile)
Original item by Yvonne Brunton
"Je t'aime" for the New Year...by a stretch!
Comment is about Penis Penis (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Ha Ha liked this. Reminds me of the joke about the 5 star hotel - all easily visible through the hole in the ceiling!
Comment is about full moon (blog)
Original item by tina
I have ambivalent thoughts about the mining industry. I accept its importance as a mainstay of the industrial might that propelled this small country to the fore in other days, yet feel immense sympathy for those men (and boys!) who worked in it, and the animals that had even less of a choice. Who, I have always wondered, would WANT to work as a miner? And with that in mind, I have also wondered why there should be such resistance to seeing the end of such a dangerous and debilitating way of life...especially if it offered the chance of another existence, helped by a financial incentive. There must be plenty of people seeking the opportunity to strike out on their own OR choose a different way of earning a living...even it it means moving elsewhere. But maybe that is the biggest hurdle for so many...moving elsewhere. Is it the fear of leaving what you know - a close-knit community in work however mean and hazardous - for the unknown of a wider world? This may be a "northern" trait as I recall that the tin miners of Cornwall became well known in other lands - seemingly willing to export their particular expertise.
Not a calling for the claustrophobic - and I wonder about life insurance rates!!
Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)
Original item by John Coopey
A lovely image painted in so few words.I love the 'barcode trees'.
Comment is about Winter Yields (blog)
Well said, M.C. Would any other exhortation be required if Altruistic love were the primary premise?
Comment is about MAN MADE RELIGION (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
These are the competition results sent to us by Cafe Writers. Congratulations to all!
Results
1st Marie Naughton (Manchester) Brain, £1,000; 2nd Jane Monson (Cambridge) Beam of Light, £300, 3rd Colette Sensier (Norwich ) I Have My Mother’s Eyes, £150. Norfolk pPrize: Tim Munsey (Norwich) Wetland, £100; Funniest: Tim Clare (Norwich) Mango, £100
Commended, £50 each: Rosemary Norman (London) Juggler; Cathy Bryant (Manchester) Summer Rain and Such Fol-de-rol; Ian Dudley (Oxford) To Rest; Amali Rodrigo (Mumbai) I Think of a Very Large Mechanical Mouth; Vahni Capildeo (Oxford) Mercy & Estrangement;
Jonathan Beale (Middlesex) Easily Forgot
Here is Marie Naughton’s winning poem:
Brain
Glistens in a pool of saline. Delicately eased
from case of bone. Pale as any shell dweller,
blind creature, unaccustomed to light. Colour
of river clay, oyster mushrooms, yeast. Runnelled
as a walnut. Ferns, curled, at the moment
of unfurling. Clusters of bladderwrack.
Bobbled pearls. Universe in a bulb or corm.
Truffle slivers, indigo- and amber-stained.
Cauliflower floret, sliced. Row of winter poplars.
Shale tideline, telltale gap.
Limestone landscape, clints and grikes.
The prizegiving will take place on 11 February at Take 5, Tombland, Norwich NR3 1HF. It begins at 7.30pm, with readings by judge Ian Duhig and major prizewinners.
Comment is about Ian Duhig to pick £1,000 Cafe Writers winner (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
The human desire to impart the unknown with a
human identity, as in the coming of Christ to
this planet in our form, is understandable - &
a quick way of getting your "word" across if you seek to convert others to your way of thinking.
The "chicken and egg" question that our intelligence provides has yet to be resolved
when considering creation in the religious sense, and in a more ignorant world the easiest way is to ignore it altogether or
respond to it as "beyond our understanding" -
which, of course, it is.
Comment is about MAN MADE RELIGION (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
Ged,
Just catching up...good to see you blogging
Comment is about Four Leaf Clover (blog)
Original item by Ged Thompson
Poignant. A lot said and there is not enough rhyming poetry about!
Comment is about A Trick of the Eye. (blog)
Anne,
Thanks for the re-welcome( as warm as your
well-remembered first one)
Comment is about Ann Foxglove (poet profile)
Original item by Ann Foxglove
A lovely poem. I recently put one on here about never seeing the ghost I wanted to see - but maybe he is around. I feel like your poem has answered a bit of a question for me. As always, sensitive, thoughtful.
Comment is about Ghosts (blog)
Original item by Tom Harding
Hi Ludo - a warm welcome to SWOL - hope you enjoy the site.
Comment is about Ludo (poet profile)
Original item by Ludo
Hi - and a very warm welcome to WOL. Hope you enjoy the site :)
Comment is about Jesuisnapoleon (poet profile)
Original item by Jesuisnapoleon
Hi Tom - welcome to WOL. Good luck with thatr hit single! Hope to see (and maybe hear) more of your work on here soon.
Comment is about Tom Doolan (poet profile)
Original item by Tom Doolan
Hi Harry - looking forward to seeing more of your candle boats of poetic endeavor on here soon ;)
Comment is about Harry O`N eill (poet profile)
Original item by Harry O`N eill
Loyalty & mateship. A devotion that covers and protects, even to one's personal loss & hurt. Admirable & noble even if it can feel or look like stupid martyrdom. Thanks for sharing.
Comment is about Should I tell her? (blog)
Original item by Katy Megan
Many thanks Mister Black
Comment is about Electric Blue (for Avital) (blog)
Original item by Laura Taylor
Thank you, kindly. I am most appreciative of your visit & honest response.
Comment is about Katy Megan (poet profile)
Original item by Katy Megan
Hi Shirley,
Great,under stated poem that perfectly explains how depression works,and the secret suffering of the afflicted. As usual,love the pic too x
Comment is about Depression (blog)
Original item by Shirley Smothers
Oh! I didn't know about Janet or John.It is such a shock Isobel. They both supported WOL at the Howcroft coming over from Wigan in all weathers.
I also have fond memories of Janet,we once got lost one evening,driving over the hills to WOL at Hebden Bridge,finally arriving in fits of laughter,that was Janet always a smile for everyone. She will be missed.
Comment is about Such misery - in Goole, Hull and Wigan (blog)
Original item by Steve Regan
M.C.
Regarding your point about`more to existence than we know:
I know the arguments about `Paley`s Watch`and design,
but every time I listen to dear old national treasure David Attenborough (and he is a national treasure)relating his anti-theism...and then look at the amazingly interlocking and almost miraculously colourful and fascinating scenes photographed by his
wonderful phographers behind him as he speaks, I can`t help suspecting that someone `up there` is taking a bit of a rise out of him.
Comment is about MAN MADE RELIGION (blog)
Original item by M.C. Newberry
I'm delighted to hear that there is a simple explanation for you disappearing like that :)
Re photo - any will do - how lucky are you not to be visually challenged - like what John Coopey is... ;)
Comment is about Harry O`N eill (poet profile)
Original item by Harry O`N eill
<Deleted User> (6895)
Tue 15th Jan 2013 18:22
Were you dressed while composing?
if not,please send snapshots that will
definitely shatter Mr.Wildes heart!
We loved it-the poem that is-ahem!xx
Comment is about Should I tell her? (blog)
Original item by Katy Megan