Today's Journal of Note:
Rio Grand Review
http://www.utep.edu/rgr
Poem and Poet of the Issue:
"Adaptiveness of Behavior"
JeFF Stumpo
He's tackled defining what a poet is. Can anyone say ever? Can a poet define him or herself? I guess she damn well better try. JeFF manages a fair definition, I'd say.
I have met JeFF, although I'm certain he doesn't remember me, a couple of times. Once at a Brazos Gumbo reading, another time at Revolution. He's a stellar poet, as comfortable on the page as he is on the stage. Worthy of your time and consideration. Keep an eye on this one.
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4 comments:
Hi Courtney,
Thanks for the plug!
Not sure if you want to start discussions/debates related to the poems on your blog, but this piece is as close to plagiarism as I think I can possibly get. Used the cut-up technique of replacing words from a particular source, in this case one of my wife's textbooks from when she was an undergrad. However, the writing was just so wonderful and appropriate that all I replaced were the specific animals. Thus, the stanza beginning "The eyes of the poet are dark-adapted" is a word-for-word sentence about cats. That being said, I also rearranged heavily, drawing from all over the chapter to get the proper effects in the right order.
I'd say that I stayed just to the ethical side of plagiarism, especially since the key concept (the animal) in each sentence has been altered.
Thoughts?
Oh, and a nitpicky fix - there should not be a stanza break after "wee hours of the morning" but there should be one after "these same early hours."
If anyone's interested, this is the closing poem in my latest chapbook, Riff Raff, available from the venerable Unicorn Press.
I should probably note that every poem in Riff Raff is a riff (a translation, a piece of ekphrasis, a cut-up game, etc) off some other piece of work. The introduction I wrote for it is titled "The Poetic of Theft." Perhaps give you an idea of what I think a poet is ;-)
You raise some interesting points, JeFF.
As teachers, we are so sensitive to plagiarism, and even more so now in the US due to the litigious nature of our society, I think. Still, there is a long tradition of "borrowing" and "riffing" in art anyway, but maybe even more so in the written arts.
I think we poets have a very special definition for the word "allusion" sometimes. I'm thinking of T. S. Eliot. I'm thinking of Raleigh’s reply to Marlow. I'm thinking of found poetry, ballads, ekphrasis, and the simple transference of the oral tradition to words in the first place. I’m thinking of Homer and Burns.
Do we poets have a special “license” to riff, refer, or allude more than other verbal artists? Or have issues regarding intellectual property and plagiarism affected modern writers' ability or desire to even attempt it? I know I've thought twice on more than one occasion. "Is it clear that these aren't my words? Is it clear whom I'm referring to? Do I need an epigram here or a footnote?” I’ve done both to be safe in the past. I make sure though that I’m only doing it to be safe and not in an effort to make sure my reader gets it. There’s a difference, I think, and it’s one of craft. But that may be another discussion.
And it’s an issue my poetry students wrestle with, too. I had a student take an entire Ben Folds Five song and type up the lyrics with line breaks. Plagiarism? You betcha. Although imitation is the highest form of flattery, it was more than a nod from one artist to another. Zero for her.
Of course, we both know there is a difference between alluding and downright ripping somebody off. But you wrote a whole collection of "riffs". I defer to you.
I'll look forward to checking it out, btw.
Printed the lyrics with the original line breaks? Or with new ones?
I think the most interesting riff I've done so far was in my first chapbook, El Oceano y La Serpiente / The Ocean and The Serpent. There are two poems in the middle titled "el espacio entre" and "fragments on the shore" that copy the typography of the end of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Relative line length, use of italics, all of it. But totally different words.
The other bit (I think you see that I'm skirting around the very issue by providing examples rather than hard points) was a spoken-word piece in which I rearranged portions of the index to Barlett's Familiar Quotations, a regular PoMo game.
Here's where my curiosity gets piqued though - neither of these examples had notes. They just can't happen in the spoken-word piece, and they were cut out (accidentally) of the chapbook.
90 degree turn. We can jettison the whole plagiarism thing by denying ourselves authorship. To say this poem was written with my hand, produced most immediately by the firing of neurons in this skull, but owes as much to the people with whom I interact, the culture in which I mature, the poets I've read before, etc.
Bad idea?
Bad idea? NO! Then I ask what's the spirit of the composition of the piece?
I mean, to return to students (sorry) as examples, there's copying and pasting b/c one doesn't know any better and then there's doing it intentionally, to pass of the work of someone else as one's own. I believe that my student did change line breaks to make look it more like what she thought would pass as a poem, if I remember correctly, but it was not in an effort to effect language and sense and impression of the piece. There is a difference.
With spoken word, you do have the option of a spoken epigram or brief intro...*rolls eyes* However, we've all been to readings where the "intro" was really more about the poet than the poem or longer than the piece. But that's only if the poet feels it's necessary. I've done it before and I've elected not to, too. Of course, it's impractical and many times, yes, impossible. And if competing, there's always that pesky time limit to consider.
Now I'm thinking of music. I'm thinking of sampling, especially in hip-hop and rap. See the following:
http://www.thesongbridge.com/jon.html
Everything and everyone we ever interact with becomes an influence. It's why no one should trust a writer, right? But there is a composition process. That firing of neurons, as you put it. You consciously made a decision to imitate in order to create. That's where it becomes different from the original, yes? The addition of your decisions to make it your own only to give to everybody else. Only you can riff the way you riff.
I go back to the spirit of the riff. Only the person doing the riffing can know the intention for sure, I guess.
Am I overusing the word riff?
Leave it for the judge to decide?
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