What is Plagarism?

[jthserra]

Hopefully, I am not stirring the fire here, but I want to see what everyone thinks about a hypothetical circumstance and one very real one:



We've been through the brough-ha-ha over a famous poem nearly copied word for word and posted here on lit. In light of all that I want to go philosophical here...

There are some what ifs... What if we only discovered the one poem (let's presume all the other post by the writer were okay) and the writer's answer to The Rain Man was:

"Yes, I am familiar with that wonderful poem, what I have written here is a parody of that famous poem."

Would you consider that plagarism?



Now, consider a recent poem published in Poetry Magazine:

Traveling Through the Dark (2005)

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed myself over the edge into the river.

......................Loren Goodman



The original reads:

Traveling Trrough the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

...........................William Stafford



When questioned about this, Poetry Editors replied:


"This is one of many letters we received about Loren Goodman's very slight adjustment - and very large parody - of William Stafford's well-known poem. Explaining a joke is never very effective, so let us just make clear to all those people who wrote in that we are in fact familiar with William Stafford, who published close to one hundred poems in this magazine, and we recognized Goodman's revision."



I think very highly of Poetry Magazine, I have been a subscriber for nearly a decade now, but wow, they have me scratching my head here. What do you think?


jim : )

 

[TheRainMan]

Hopefully, I am not stirring the fire here, but I want to see what everyone thinks about a hypothetical circumstance and one very real one:



We've been through the brough-ha-ha over a famous poem nearly copied word for word and posted here on lit. In light of all that I want to go philosophical here...

There are some what ifs... What if we only discovered the one poem (let's presume all the other post by the writer were okay) and the writer's answer to The Rain Man was:

"Yes, I am familiar with that wonderful poem, what I have written here is a parody of that famous poem."

Would you consider that plagarism?



Now, consider a recent poem published in Poetry Magazine:

Traveling Through the Dark (2005)

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed myself over the edge into the river.

......................Loren Goodman



The original reads:

Traveling Trrough the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

...........................William Stafford



When questioned about this, Poetry Editors replied:


"This is one of many letters we received about Loren Goodman's very slight adjustment - and very large parody - of William Stafford's well-known poem. Explaining a joke is never very effective, so let us just make clear to all those people who wrote in that we are in fact familiar with William Stafford, who published close to one hundred poems in this magazine, and we recognized Goodman's revision."



I think very highly of Poetry Magazine, I have been a subscriber for nearly a decade now, but wow, they have me scratching my head here. What do you think?


jim : )

I am also an avid reader. They have me scratching my head too . . . though they could make the argument (which they are) that the change of that single word entirely changes the meaning of the poem (which it does).

I do not buy that argument, but at least it is there to make.

That, of course, was not the intent or the result of the plagiarized poem I pointed out in the other thread. That was a a theft (which this is not), copying (and ravaging, I might add) with the intent to pass it off as a completely new and original work. The author even denied (in comment on the poem) ever having read Paul Dunbar, and claimed every word was hers, and original.

 

[Reltne]

Jim, my thought would be that some acknowledgment of the second writer's intention (i.e. "a parody/variation by. . . "), and/or a reference to the original poem and its author (i.e. "with apologies to. . ."; "a variation on. . .") needs to be made. This helps avoid copyright questions. And while explaining a joke may weaken/ruin it, it is not even a joke/parody if the reader does not know the original!

If I were parodying the poem I would take the roadkill for the freezer!

 

[TheRainMan]

...some acknowledgment of the second writer's intention (i.e. "a parody/variation by. . . "), and/or a reference to the original poem and its author (i.e. "with apologies to. . ."; "a variation on. . .") needs to be made. This helps avoid copyright questions.

I made the assumption this would be done, of course. It is absolutely essential.

It was done, wasn't it, Jim?

 

[WickedEve]

Jim, you must have posted this before. Yes? I remember reading about it. Maybe it's just me, but I think the parody is a bit lame and lazy.

 

[Christina O. Leigh]

I am also an avid reader. They have me scratching my head too . . . though they could make the argument (which they are) that the change of that single word entirely changes the meaning of the poem (which it does).

I do not buy that argument, but at least it is there to make.

That, of course, was not the intent or the result of the plagiarized poem I pointed out in the other thread. That was a a theft (which this is not), copying (and ravaging, I might add) with the intent to pass it off as a completely new and original work. The author even denied (in comment on the poem) ever having read Paul Dunbar, and claimed every word was hers, and original.

The writer changed ONE word. In my mind, that's still plagiarism.

The poem you (TRM) had brought to everyone's attention was the same - it's plagiarism. The poet was just a wannabe. S/he did a horrible job at it, too!

I can't say what's worse with the poems mentioned here. I'm just nodding my head in disbelief and no respect for these people.

 

[Liar]

Nevermind if it was a parody or not, it was a bloody bad one. Predictable, cheap and sophomoric. I thought Poetry Magazine had some kind of standards.

 

[jthserra]

Originally Posted by Reltne
...some acknowledgment of the second writer's intention (i.e. "a parody/variation by. . . "), and/or a reference to the original poem and its author (i.e. "with apologies to. . ."; "a variation on. . .") needs to be made. This helps avoid copyright questions.

I made the assumption this would be done, of course. It is absolutely essential.

It was done, wasn't it, Jim?

The only concession that the poem had any history was the: (2005)
nothing else indicated that it was a parody of anything. Stafford was not mentioned until letters to the editor in the October issue. The poem in question was published in the July/August 2005 edition.

 

[jthserra]

That, of course, was not the intent or the result of the plagiarized poem I pointed out in the other thread. That was a a theft (which this is not), copying (and ravaging, I might add) with the intent to pass it off as a completely new and original work. The author even denied (in comment on the poem) ever having read Paul Dunbar, and claimed every word was hers, and original.

Yes, I guess posing the hypothetical... if this author, had not denied reading Paul Dunbar, but instead had embraced the original poem and said, "Yes, I loved that poem, that is why I wrote this parody." I know this did not happen, and a number of other works were questionable, but, again for the hypothetical, ignore all that and ask...

If that poem was submitted as a parody, would it be plagarism or parody?


Honestly, I am conflicted here... I find it hard to defend Poetry's publishing that poem. But what if larger portions were changed, perhaps like the Dunbar poem, and the author acknowledged the original and claimed she wrote a parody.

I guess we need a definition of parody...

jim : )

 

[My Erotic Trail]

Jim, you must have posted this before. Yes? I remember reading about it. Maybe it's just me, but I think the parody is a bit lame and lazy.

Yes, Jim made this very same point over the conversation we had
about "Zatoichi Monogatari"

I think it is plagairism, changing so little, can one put their name to it and call it theirs with out mention of the first poem?

 

[Christina O. Leigh]

I thought Poetry Magazine had some kind of standards.

and isn't that a laugh in a half?!!

 

[jthserra]

Nevermind if it was a parody or not, it was a bloody bad one. Predictable, cheap and sophomoric. I thought Poetry Magazine had some kind of standards.

Since they received the massive amount of money from Lily and Joseph Parisi left them I have seen a bit of a change in the poetry they have been taking. I have seen a decline in the MFA professors/lecturers/graduates and a bit more of the regular type guy poet. There are some poems I wonder about, but then there still are a lot of really good poems too.

Speaking of standards, in one issue, Poetry published a series of four or five emails they received from Franz Wright (the 2004 Pulitizer Prize Winner for poetry and son of (I think) Charles Wright (it might be James Wright)) all whining about them rejecting his most recent submission. I certainly lost a lot of respect for Franz Wright after seeing that...

jim : )

 

[Tzara]

This is an interesting example, Jim. For the Goodman poem, I think the issue in which it appeared was labeled "Special Humor Issue", which helps, maybe, give the context that perhaps the poem is not intended to be read in a straightforward manner. That seems pretty slim reasoning to me, though. I agree with Reltne that there should be some kind of indicator that it is a parody. Perhaps if the poem being altered was really famous (something like Yeats' "The Second Coming", for example) an explicit statement wouldn't be necessary. I wouldn't have known the Stafford poem.

Goodman's "poem" seems rather like some of the less interesting performance art pieces one sees nowadays.

However, it does raise some interesting questions. Take the poem I flagged as possibly plagiarizing E. E. Cummings. Here the "author" has reversed the gender and position of the narrator from male and above (in the embrace) to female and below. The use of the identical lines and phrases from Cummings' poem ("Firm-smoothness", "Muscles better and nerves more") could be argued, I suppose, as necessary to present the other viewpoint in the context of a comment on the original poem. I don't think that's what going on here, but I can see that the argument might be made, though I would again presume that there should be some acknowledgement made that it is a variation on Cummings' poem.

 

[jthserra]

However, it does raise some interesting questions. Take the poem I flagged as possibly plagiarizing E. E. Cummings. Here the "author" has reversed the gender and position of the narrator from male and above (in the embrace) to female and below. The use of the identical lines and phrases from Cummings' poem ("Firm-smoothness", "Muscles better and nerves more") could be argued, I suppose, as necessary to present the other viewpoint in the context of a comment on the original poem. I don't think that's what going on here, but I can see that the argument might be made, though I would again presume that there should be some acknowledgement made that it is a variation on Cummings' poem.

I had wondered some about the e.e. cummings poem... whether perhaps it was a poem inspired by the original that maybe stayed too close to the original. I often will work at mimicking a poet's style while I am reading them. I usually will notate a quote from their work and then move into my poem... but I have to question myself. Am I getting too close to the original?

I usually try to avoid paraphrasing a poem, usually taking a quote and spinning off in a different direction, but still how much of the idea was mine, how much the original poet's?

 

[jthserra]

This is an interesting example, Jim. For the Goodman poem, I think the issue in which it appeared was labeled "Special Humor Issue", which helps, maybe, give the context that perhaps the poem is not intended to be read in a straightforward manner. That seems pretty slim reasoning to me, though. I agree with Reltne that there should be some kind of indicator that it is a parody. Perhaps if the poem being altered was really famous (something like Yeats' "The Second Coming", for example) an explicit statement wouldn't be necessary. I wouldn't have known the Stafford poem.

Goodman's "poem" seems rather like some of the less interesting performance art pieces one sees nowadays.

You are correct, I neglected to mention that this was in the "Special Humor Issue" and seeing you mention it I can see where that could be significant. Still I have to wonder why no one thought to mention the original... perhaps they expected all of us to know it.

jim : )

 

[Angeline]

There's a fine line between a poem that is derived from another poem or is written in a derivative style (serious or parody) in order to honor the poet it copies and a poem that plagiarizes. To me there are two important differences though. The first is that the former doesn't attempt to masquerade as the original poem; it may, in fact, directly (or indirectly) credit the poem/poet it mimics. The second (and to me more telling difference) is that a poem that plagiarizes generally has--aside from the words/lines it mimics--nothing original to say. That's the heart of plagiarizing in my opinion: you steal someone else's words because you have nothing of consequence to say on your own.

 

[Stella_Omega]

This is an interesting example, Jim. For the Goodman poem, I think the issue in which it appeared was labeled "Special Humor Issue", which helps, maybe, give the context that perhaps the poem is not intended to be read in a straightforward manner. That seems pretty slim reasoning to me, though. I agree with Reltne that there should be some kind of indicator that it is a parody. Perhaps if the poem being altered was really famous (something like Yeats' "The Second Coming", for example) an explicit statement wouldn't be necessary. I wouldn't have known the Stafford poem.

Goodman's "poem" seems rather like some of the less interesting performance art pieces one sees nowadays.

However, it does raise some interesting questions. Take the poem I flagged as possibly plagiarizing E. E. Cummings. Here the "author" has reversed the gender and position of the narrator from male and above (in the embrace) to female and below. The use of the identical lines and phrases from Cummings' poem ("Firm-smoothness", "Muscles better and nerves more") could be argued, I suppose, as necessary to present the other viewpoint in the context of a comment on the original poem. I don't think that's what going on here, but I can see that the argument might be made, though I would again presume that there should be some acknowledgement made that it is a variation on Cummings' poem.

I notice that the poet has removed your comment.
To use so many of e.e.cummings' particular and very individual phrases, to deliniate key concepts in a poem that deals with the identical subject- is plagarism.

To parody, one needs to bring a new and skewed viewpoint to the poem- and humor is almost always the point of parody. To answer the poem, you need to ackowlege the poet you are responding to. To honor him, you need to mention his name

At least, that's how I see it after a day of being dragged thruogh the malls by my daughter!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Angeline, we cross-posted, and said the same thing- what she said, fols, I agree!

 

[Angeline]

Angeline, we cross-posted, and said the same thing- what she said, fols, I agree!

As my grandmother used to say, redundantly:

What's true is true.

 

[wildsweetone]

i would have thought there was so much in the world to write about that it wouldn't really be possible to accidentally copy the poem of another.

perhaps it's a quirky form of extended cliche...

 

[jthserra]

I think I would call this one Plagarism

Right Where I Need to Be

Discovered first by anonymous... You won't catch me listening to this CW music...


jim : )


PS: I reported this one to Laurel

 

[WickedEve]

Right Where I Need to Be

Discovered first by anonymous... You won't catch me listening to this CW music...


jim : )


PS: I reported this one to Laurel

He just joined a few days ago. Maybe it's the same person who was plagiarizing those others poems, or someone else who just wants to see us get worked up. I can't think of any other reason, since submitting a popular (I guess it's popular) song is stupid thing to do.

 

[My Erotic Trail]

He just joined a few days ago. Maybe it's the same person who was plagiarizing those others poems, or someone else who just wants to see us get worked up. I can't think of any other reason, since submitting a popular (I guess it's popular) song is stupid thing to do.

That was my thoughts also, the same person's retalliation perhaps.
I don't think I have ever heard a Gary Allen song but it is evident that the poem is the song.

 

[Liar]

That was my thoughts also, the same person's retalliation perhaps.
I don't think I have ever heard a Gary Allen song but it is evident that the poem is the song.

Well, it ain't there no more.

 

[TheRainMan]

Well, it ain't there no more.

No, it isn't. But a new one is.

The poem this person has posted today is also plagiarized.

secret_neo's poem

the original lyrics