What Adrienne Thinks About That

Is this what wound up on some Liberal Arts freshman’s dorm door in word magnets?

I suck at writing and reading poetry, mostly because I despise the way most people sound when reading poetry aloud, that freaking tone that implies that the collection of words emanating from the reader’s mouth are the most important words ever spoken. So I know my opinion doesn’t matter.

Maybe someone will have to read it to me because not only does it seem nonsensical in meaning, I cannot discern any pattern that makes these words any more or less appealing than any other random combination of words. I don't know.

Maybe I'll try to read it aloud when I'm at home, but I can't find a way to read this without awkwardly tripping over the words. Is it a tongue twister?

And I respectfully don't understand Chicken Spaghetti likening it to Frost. I'm sure there are similarities that someone who knows what he or she is talking about can identify, but the main difference I see is that I typically really like Frost and completely don't like this one and I am too uneducated in poetry to say why, other than Frost puts words together that mean something to me and they appeal to me aesthetically.

This poem does neither.

"In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. " WTF?!? Beyond the obvious alliteration, what possible business do these words have in being next to each other?

This poem makes me angry. I should probably explore the reasons why. I'm sure it's an indication that something is more wrong with me than is wrong with this poem.

Maybe it's like the wheel barrow poem, which I liked until I found out, according to my professor friends, it requires you to know a bunch of biographical information to know that it was really about a little girl dying (WTF?). Maybe if I knew this poet's life story this would mean something to me.

I think Susan (at Chicken Spaghetti) was using that as a segue from all the Frost-related poems in the previous paragraph. I thought it was nicely done, a little punny.

Hm. I don't want to invalidate any of your disliking of the poem, Chuck. It's not my favorite poem in Stevens' catalog -- I am much more a fan of "The Snow Man" and "The World as Meditation" -- but I have always enjoyed the word combinations that, as you note, on a first reading or two (or, hey, twenty five) seem silly. I have always also liked the idea of an emperor of ice-cream (you know, because I like ice cream), and I love the line, "Let be be finale of seem." That's the line I most get in the poem. I picked the poem today because I wanted to post something that connected to the fact that I was cold, and this seemed to fit. Of course, I think the poem is actually about a dead person, but, you know, who cares? Too many people hate literature because they think they need to like James Joyce or figure out every poem they look at. If something grabs you, maybe you spend a little time exploring it. If not, let it go. Read some Frost. Here's the other poem I was considering for today:

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
-Robert Frost in New Hampshire

Just out of curiosity, how does a professional librarian explain the repeated (and, one presumes, knowing) violation of copyright with all of these full-length poetry quotations? Doesn't your spleen quiver with trepidation at such serial transgressions?

I like art that is pretty, and I like poems that rhyme. I like you, too. :)

Now that you mention a dead person, I kind of get a few lines of the poem now, but I don't think I would have ever gotten there on my own. And the thing is, I score really highly on reading comprehension tests. I have read those lines probably more than 50 times and no meaning, no image, nothing of value emerged from that collection of words until you, a person outside the poem, mentioned a dead woman, then I reapplied that knowledge to my next several readings of the poem and now I kind of have an image of what the poet was saying.

It really frustrates me that something can be so cryptic to me. Am I stupid? Am I incapable of some sort of abstract thought? And even with the hint from your title that this poem was supposed to make me feel cold, it didn’t until today, even with the mention of ice cream and exposed feet. All I felt yesterday was confusion as to why someone would pile seemingly unrelated words like that.

I really don’t understand why poems have the line
Breaks where they do and why, in some, the first word
In each line is capitalized even when it’s really the middle of a sentence. Wh
Y not just bre
Ak things up in the middle of words while we’re fucking with convention? It makes as much sense as where the line breaks are in this poem. It prevents me from understanding where one though stream begins and ends; it prevents me from receiving a message from the writer. It’s as if poems are created by someone who writes a coherent paragraph, then introduces random line breaks, capitalizations, and unrelated words to obscure the meaning from me.

And I can’t help but think that it takes a self-centered asshole to write something that requires me read it fifty times and consult an expert before anything that resembles meaning emerges. If someone wants to write that way, keep that shit in your journal, don’t put it out there where I might be exposed to it and have try to figure out what the bloody frig you are trying to say.

I don’t think I can move on, maybe that’s my problem. I just can’t see a collection of words and walk away from them without receiving a message. I like human communication, I like spending time in someone else’s mind, that’s why I read random blogs, listen to NPR, and watch random shit on YouTube. So when I run across words, I will probably read them and I am interested in what people have to say. Why would someone make it so goddamned hard for me? I read things like that poem and I honestly take it as an insult. I really think that someone who would write that is a self-centered prick incapable of or unwilling to imagine how a reader is going to experience the words.

And that goes for the assholes who follow The Associated Press Style Guide and don’t put a comma before “and” or “or” in a series.

By "keep that shit in your journal" I mean hypothetical poets should keep that shit in their hypothetical journals, I wasn't criticizing you for posting the poem. In fact I'm kind of enjoying how pissed of the poem gets me. The other two Stevens poems are not so cryptic, so I'm not as pissed at him as I was. And according to whomever last wrote about him on Wikipedia, I think I have a lot in common with him.

I read PLENTY of poetry that makes me feel the same way, Chuck. One thing I find refreshing about poetry (and so much literature) written for children and teens is that, when it's done well, the authors don't feel the same need to get all fancy and prove how smart they are they way adult authors can. I'm kind of stuck in the modernist period as far as that goes. Of course, Stevens is a modernist, and he can get a little unnecessarily fancy. The poetry of that period is sort of all over the place, and, goodness knows, I like plenty of poetry before and since.

The poem I hate with every fiber of my being? The Thirteen-Book Prelude by Wordsworth, a poem so long it needs italics rather than quotation marks. Why I hate it? Too long. Just way too damn long.

People who don’t read the comments are missing out; they are especially missing out on Chuck calling people who omit the Oxford comma “assholes.” That’s the best thing I’ve read in months.

I guess the copyright thing should bother me, Craig, but it doesn’t. If a copyright holder contacted me with any concerns, I would happily remove their poem. Especially with my reviews of children’s books of poetry, I think the inclusion of an actual poem (or at least an excerpt) speaks more for the collection than anything I can say. Poets need all the help they can get to get their works into the hands of readers.

I think the copywright violation would only occur if you were either taking credit as the author yourself, not giving them credit, or receiving money for displaying the poetry without passing on due compensation to the author. Since none of that is happening, I don't think you are doing anything wrong. Granted, you aren't getting permission to post it, but no one will come after you. The worst they would do anyway is first send a "ceast and desist" letter, to which you'd probably shrug your shoulders and remove the work from the blog.

But who knows. These days all the poetry in the world might be patented by Monsanto or some other giant multi-national corporation, so maybe you'd have to pay them a fee for posting it.

I think copyright expires after 70 years or something, so I imagine much of Stevens' work is fair game anyway. I wonder how it works when someone recompiles older works and publishes an anthology, if that starts the 70 years all over again.

Wow. Well, I like Wallace Stevens, but I won't pretend I always understand him. I like a poem that challenges me. I like your choice today, Adrienne. And I LOVE spirited debate about the written word. Thanks, everybody!

I agree with Kelly.

(Per Jeffrey Lee's comments)

Some of the poetry quoted full length herein is certainly far more recent in origin than seventy years even if the Stevens piece is that old or older. And, barring fair use exceptions, reprinting virtually anything that doesn't fall within public domain without permission, in fact, constitutes copyright violation.

As for the suggestion that it's okay to post such poems since no one will come after you anyway (despite illegality) . . . or that you do it until someone objects and forces you to relent--those are rather morally questionable attitudes. People are entitled to control the rights to their own creative works without fear of others declaring copyright infringement acceptable because it's a so-called victimless crime.

(Per Adrienne's comments)

Including the full text of a poem within a book review falls into fair use. Besides, that's not really what I was addressing. Consider instead the entry for January 19 with the full-length poem excerpted from "Love That Dog." It'd be generous indeed to consider that entry a book review despite the accompanying prose. This, strictly speaking, constitutes a copyright violation.

Can anyone ever publish a book for kids containing, say, fifty contemporary poems, none of which are being reprinted with permission? No, of course not. Just plain illegal. Now, consider this: over the years, will WATAT include fifty such entries as that of January 19th? If so, how is it that a person can do what a publisher of books cannot do thanks to legal restraints?

As for the suggestion that one would gladly remove a poem if asked to do so . . . This is tantamount to saying that one will stop violating the law only once one is forced to. To me this is akin to saying "I can keep stealing pens from my coworkers' desks until my coworkers voice their objections and ask me to stop."

As for the notion of helping other writers . . . Within the context of a book review this is entirely acceptable and necessary, obviously. But the January 19th entry falls outside of this book review context. It's really a gratuitous reprinting of the poem simply for the sake of enthusiastic sharing. A nice sentiment? Yes. Legal? No. Would the author care? Probably not? Would the author appreciate the unsolicited cheerleading? Most probably. But it is not any one person's prerogative to bypass copyright law simply because s/he is trying to be nice or because s/he "knows" the author wouldn't mind.

Regarding this particular comment: "I guess the copyright thing should bother me, Craig, but it doesn’t" . . . If librarians don't care about observing copyright, who will? Furthermore, it seems somewhat troubling to have a professional librarian admit in a public forum that copyright isn't that important to her. If nothing else, such a sentiment only reinforces the time-honored stereotype of public (most especially children's)librarians as being less professionally rigorous and less intellectually capable than their academic peers.

(Imagine I'm a librarian and blogger who's in a job interview. One of the members of the interview panel, who's looked at my site, asks me about my January 19th entry, pointing out that it constitutes a copyright violation. Do I confess that I know copyright's important but that it just doesn't matter that much to me? I'm guessing the panel members wouldn't be too pleased with that response.)

Lastly, imagine that someone likes Adrienne's home schooling book so much that that person puts an entire chapter online. Is this okay? Is it okay up until the point when Adrienne finds out and then finally asks the person to remove the chapter? (She's helping Adrienne, right? It's free advertising, right?) And what if Adrienne never finds out about this? A chapter is a much more substantial chunk of a book, yes, but the principle remains the same. (Would half a chapter be okay? A quarter? Who's to decide?) Adrienne is entitled to exercise full control over her own work and should not have to surrender that control to anyone else. Nor should she be expected to troll the Intenet to keep an eye out for well-intentioned do-gooders who want to help her and who don't think copyright is important enough to bother with. It's an issue of legality, sure, but it's also an issue of mutual respect.

I had given this a little thought before Craig brought it up and had figured Adrienne was covered by fair use, but Craig is a persuasive writer so I’m questioning. The extent of my copyright law knowledge comes from one day of discussion in a digital photography class, so I researched a little this morning. I’m going to excerpt from the US Copyright Office on fair use:

“Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1.the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

2.the nature of the copyrighted work;

3.amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

4.the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

Based on this, maybe Adrienne is okay to post, however, I strongly agree with Craig that she, as a librarian, should be hyper aware of copyright and be an ardent defender of it and thereby should have a better answer to the copyright question than “I guess the copyright thing should bother me... but it doesn’t" I think she's in the clear to do what she's doing legally and ethically, she just needs to know that and articulate it.

So in looking at the excerpt and applying Adrienne’s situation to those rules:

Any posting of a poem here can be considered any or all of criticism, comment, teaching, scholarship, and research. Only news reporting doesn’t really apply. I also think that this states that the law allows Adrienne to post things since the economic effect on the authors is likely to be nonexistent or slightly positive. Adrienne doesn’t run ads on the site, so I think she fits as non-profit and educational. The nature and amount are iffy, as Craig points out, since a poem is a discreet stand-alone piece, like a photo or an article, not a small portion of a larger piece, though one poem is a small portion of an anthology or poetry book.

I think this site, as any other public blog, is free ephemera and Adrienne does benefit from it some, but only as a piece of her CV. But since it is (sometimes loosely) a Librarian themed site, it really fits the description of appropriate fair use as described above.

Unless Adrienne prints an anthology of all her posts including the poem excerpts, and sells them for profit or gives them away in such a way that the author's sales of poems were undercut, I don't think it's a fair analogy to compare this site to an uncompensated poetry collection book. If she got paid for any links, that would cross the line.

And as for mutual respect, I think it is respectful to post the poetry and I doubt a single poet's sales are negatively affected or that he or she minds the exposure here. I don't think it's unfair or unethical to assume that. I don't think it's analogous to a chapter of a book, maybe a page, but the same fair use rules would apply in that situation and I think in most cases, someone who would excerpt from her book would have a right to do so, in moderation. Even if over a course of years that person had a book's worth of excerpts for several authors.

Now I do think Adrienne should avoid becoming fixated on any one poet, so as not to become a defacto anthology of that person's work, but I think if she mixes it up and posts several different people, she's not detracting from any one of them.

Ummm... I doubt that anyone will read this far down, but if I'm at a job interview where someone has a problem with me posting a poem that I like on my blog, then there's a major red flag right there. Thank you, sir or madam, for your time, but I don't think I'll be finishing this interview. This is clearly not the job for me.

As for ethics and morals, I believe that it is wrong to make money off someone's original work, but that's about it. Copyright law was created to protect the creator, but like every law eventually, it has come to serve its own interests. Back before copyright law, stories belonged to everyone.
I mean, should we take this to its logical (and ridiculous) conclusion? Every poem is inspired by an amalgam of poems that the author has read before. Should we start determining those origins and requiring the writers of poetry to give financial credit to all of those sources? It's impossible. So is it impossible to think that once art gets out into the public eye it can ever be fully controlled by anyone. Any artist knows that this is true deep down.

This statement, however, made me absolutely furious:

"If nothing else, such a sentiment only reinforces the time-honored stereotype of public (most especially children's)librarians as being less professionally rigorous and less intellectually capable than their academic peers."

Part of the reason I got into children's librarianship is because it's less professionally rigorous. Fuck professional rigor. Since when is that the standard of value? I have an above average intellegence and many of my favorite librarians are children's and young adult librarians. Why? Because they think outside of the box. Because they understand the value of the (very unrigorous) mind of a child. Because they know that the world is a place to be explored and wondered at and reveled in, not controlled, compartmentalized, labeled, and put in a bin.

I am well aware that posting this will give certain individuals a holistic impression of me that only constitutes one part of my being and that I have probably reinforced said stereotypes for public children's librarians, but there is more to life than law. The law is supposed to serve humanity, not the other way around. My goals in life include living peacefully and without harm (as much as is possible) to my fellow humans. The laws were created not for people like me but for people who would seek to profit off the hard work of others. In my profession, I need to be sensitive to the issue of copyright; but that us out of concern for my library and for possible consequences, not because it is how I feel personally. I will serve the higher law of my conscience, whether or not the written law agrees.

I appreciate your comments and concern, Craig, but "I guess the copyright thing should bother me, Craig, but it doesn’t" was my way of saying that I'm not a copyright lawyer or an expert on copyright in any way, shape, or form and don't care to debate the finer shades of fair use on my blog. From everything I've read on the topic, copyright is an extremely complicated area of law and isn't as simple as a+b=c. There are the laws on the books, but then there's also case law, the way the laws have been interpreted in the courts -- and that continues to evolve as the laws are tested. Copyright lawyers devote years of study and their lives to this topic, and I'm never going to put in that much time to learning enough to feel comfortable debating it.

As a librarian, a writer, and someone who loves the arts, I have a lot of reasons to think about intellectual property and to be sensitive to issues surrounding it. I have often rested in being sensitive to the spirit of copyright law, which exists to ensure that I don't run amok making money off other people's creations or getting stuff for free that I should be paying for. I can assure you that I don't make any money off watat.com -- quite the opposite, watat costs me money to run. And while I'll grant that January 19 isn't the pinnacle of my reviewing career, most of my Poetry Friday posts are very clearly reviews, often, like this comment, lengthier ones than I imagine my readers care to read.

I'm trying not to take offense at the comment about children's librarian stereotypes, but, like JP, I am failing. This is a bit of a swerve off topic, but I think my skills and expertise in things like children's literature, child development, learning styles, popular culture as it applies to children and parents, marketing, and grant writing are more than enough to qualify me as a professional. The reason many children's librarians are thought of as unequal professionals is because such a shocking number of people don't consider the raising of the next generation of human beings nearly as important as having a grasp of things like, say, copyright law or even how to unjam a printer. I have no patience for that kind of attitude, nor, in my experience, are academic librarians necessarily the model of intellectual capability or professional rigor. They are just as likely to be as creative and interesting or as small-minded and petty as any other group of librarians one might encounter in any number of environments.

Regarding Chuck's post, which I enjoyed immensely (Why aren't *you* a librarian, Chuck?), I suppose I'm going to have to stop posting poems by John Ciardi, since three has got to be pushing fixation level. Damn. I love John Ciardi, and, sadly, a lot of his stuff is out of print.

Craig,

You raise some reasonable and fair issues. I certainly by no means advocate breaking the law only if one thinks they won't get caught. But I think what is at issue here is not the letter of the law, but the precedant, practice, and spirit of it. By strict definition, Adrienne is breaking the law. But there is not an author or publisher in the world that is going to come after her no matter what their legal standing. Adrienne's intent is not to make money off of or take credit for someone else's work. Indeed, she does give due and public credit to the authors she quotes and as she has said, it costs her money to operate WATAT. What little I know of copyright law practice tells me that she's in the clear. It all comes down to money. The cost and effort that any author or publisher would have to put into getting any money out of Adrienne would not be worth it.

My only real experience with this type of thing has to do with securing rights for recorded music in live theatrical productions. Many of the smaller, not-for-profit shows I've done have not received permission to use the music samples I've chosen. Is this legal? No. But the time and resources the show would have to dedicate to getting the rights is simply too much. Even in cases of large scale not-for-profit or commercial theatre productions, music permission is sought but rarely secured. Most often, if a person or entity that holds the rights can even be found, they almost never respond. I know of only two cases where there was a refusal to give the rights of use. One involved the Marvin Gaye song "Mery, Mercy Me." At the time, it was being used in several television ads, which was much the cause for the refusal -- the large ad agencies and corporations they represented would have gotten upset if their big money, exclusive-use contracts were violated. The Gaye estate simply couldn't agree to further use because they had already agreed with another entity for the song's use. I believe they resolved it by offering the use of any other song in their catalogue free of charge. The other case involved a song that the publisher wanted to charge some exhorbitant fee (like $50,000 per performance). They were not familar with the theatre world and once the situation was explained to them, they charged some nominal fee. I realize these are not legal precedants and are limited cases, but I do believe they provide a window into copyright law in practice. Additionally, over the last few years, there have been several cases in my industry involving use of a director's staging or a designer's scenery concepts in ways that the original creators deemed using their work without permission. One of the keys to these cases of intellectual property violations was not so much the use of the work without permission, but the lack of credit and compensation. This, I think, is ultimately what the copyright laws are trying to protect. And even if the laws don't explicitly state it as such, it's certainly how those laws are practiced, it all comes down to money.

I think one of the difficulties in determining the proper use in this case has to do with the work in question having been used on a blog. I don't think that copyright laws properly address something like a blog. There's no way they can. Blogs are only a few years old whereas copyright laws were written many years ago. A blog, in my opinion, is much like a diary. Granted, it is a public one where there is discussion and comment made by anyone in the world who can come across it. Does the fact that it is written down make it any different than if we were all sitting in a room together speaking the things we offer up? I fail to see much of a difference. And again, since Adrienne isn't charging any money or presenting the work as her own, I don't see how this forum is different than if she were to read it aloud in an informal group. Does the library secure permission for every story time book it reads? I also believe copyright law is fairly flexible when it comes to personal use issues. Why do you think no one was ever punished for all those mix tapes they used to make in the 80's? I think this blog, in the format it currently follows, is pretty well protected under precedant of personal use despite the fact that it is available for public consumption.

In a perfect world, everyone would get permission for the kind of use we are talking about here, but it's simply not workable. There's no incentive and no reasonable person would be bothered by it.

I have to confess that I'm really enjoying the way everyone's talking about me like I'm not here, and I can't think of the last time I've had this many comments on one entry. :)

It's Fair Use, meaning Adrienne has never broken a law in letter or spirit in the history of WATAT, making this discussion interesting but moot. She has likewise not broken any codes of ethics for librarians. The only possible thing I could think of that Adrienne could do differently going forward with WATAT is answer the next inquiry into her copyright law adherance practices with, "Look up the definition of Fair Use, fuckface."

I also wanted to comment on Chuck's small tirade:

Chuck, I admire your passionate feeling about this poem, but I think you are taking this way more personally than you ought to. Yet, I think your feelings are similar to what most people have about poetry -- that it's arbitrary, esoteric and difficult. Indeed, the line breaks and word choices can be such. But that is entirely the point. It's a personal expression and the author is trying guide you through those words in a very particular way. It amazes me how people get so offended by words on a page that they don't understand immediately and in the manner in which they usually access the language. Poetry, any of it, is not normal language. It's designed to present an altered view of the world. People don't speak in meter or rhyme any more than they speak in odd line breaks and alliterative words. Our culture is so dismissive of anything approaching intellectual thought that we have raised a generation in which people refuse to accept anything but patterned, easy to understand, pleasing language. It's kind of sad really.

If I might glom on to your raising the topic of photography to contrast the visual language of a photograph to that of a poem. One of the always furiously debated topics amongst photographers is the appearance of blur and the use of focus in a picture. Someone long ago decided that a "proper" photo is one where the entire photo is presented perfectly in focus and with even light. As a result, almost all cameras made these days attempt to provide the user with preprogrammed tools to achieve this ideal. Yet, if you open yourself up to images other than this, there is a whole world of expression that you can begin to explore. The point is, that a photo, much like a poem, is not real. To pretend otherwise is the real fantasy. And sometimes we achieve a greater understanding of an idea or a feeling if it's not presented all out in the open. If art achieves anything of value it is precisely that: exploring the truth through false means. Imagine all those pictures from the Olympics where you see a runner's legs blurred because they are running so fast the film couldn't capture it. Is this real? Frankly, even if the film does stop time and presents the legs perfectly still and in focus, is that real? Neither situation is. The runner isn't in the photo and the photo is a particular, confined view of space and time from the vantage point of the person taking it. But each use of technique, the blur and the focus, tells the story of that runner in a different way. One captures the motion and one stops it, but one isn't any more right than the other. Words in a poem are much the same thing.

Since there is an economy of language at play, any poet worth their salt pours over each choice very carefully. I doubt Stevens just threw a bunch of words up in the air and jotted down the result haphazzardly. That said, it's entirely possible he did. He could probably get away with it since he is a recognized poet and the audience who reads that stuff would presume he acted in good faith in creating a considered, well thought out piece. Who's to say. But I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt much like I would anyone else who says they created something original and from their heart. Unless I have reason to think otherwise, why shouldn't I?

None of this means one has to like the results of course. Nor does one have to like the technique. But to claim it is of no value and not the result of real work is not right.

It's also sad to me that people believe they must be stupid or uneducated because they don't immediately understand something in art. On first glance, the poem didn't make much sense to me and in fact, I didn't like it very much. Still don't. But I also didn't go into reading it with an expectation that it was a prose piece. I don't feel like I need a college degree to "get it." I'm just too lazy to re-read it and think about it enough to try to "get it." That's my fault, not Stevens. But I also don't think Stevens wrote it so that I wouldn't understand it without going to college. It's just words. I know the meaning of each of the words he uses (okay, with exception of concupiscent), so really there isn't much preventing me from accessing this beyond my own willingness to try. The fact that I've studied poetry in college might enhance my ability to work through some of the finer details of its construction or make me more open to the technique and style simply out of familiarity with the medium, but that's about all my education would provide. In the end, the fact remains that I have the ability and can make the choice to attempt an understanding or not.

And no piece of art should feel any obligation to either stand completely on its own nor require the viewer/reader to reference something outside of itself for understanding. This is a grey area of art that has and always will be there. Every work stands as much on its own as it stands in comparison to everything before and after it. This is perhaps not the ideal, but certainly the way it functions. And in the end, it's as much up to the artist as it is the audience to decide whether to embrace that ambiguity or ignore it. But to pretend it doesn't exist is a fallacy.

I like the fact that the comments have taken on a life of their own. It all started off innocuously enough and then morphed into a whole new thing. That's awesome.

Is it too late to say I like the poem?

Oh, and I agree that "Let be be finale of seem" is a pretty cool line.

But I'm glad you all had the other discussion -- I learned a little.

Per Chuck: "Any posting of a poem here can be considered any or all of criticism, comment, teaching, scholarship, and research."

That's clearly incorrect. Simply because the larger context of WATAT is analytical doesn't entitle Adrienne to, for instance, post poems all by themselves (sans analysis). In the same way Adrienne could not publish an encyclopedia and, in the book's appendix, reprint the full text of twenty copyrighted poems. That's simply a violation of copyright. I myself used to edit an online newsletter, part of which included the full text of a given author's short stories. However, I could only reprint those short stories which predated the sliding copyright cutoff date. All the rights to the most recent stories were still owned by various periodicals. My newsletter site was entirely critical/analytical in nature, but that didn't entitle me to not observe the simply limitations that copyright law put upon me.

Hear, hear, Jeffrey Lee! On both topics. A bit wordy, yes, but very well stated :).

Regarding the topic of words thrown together to make poems-- I believe that there is art in experimenting with words themselves apart from their meanings. What can be fascinating about a poem with words randomly arranged in it (or systematically but by some means other than their usual associations with each other) is the way that words that would not normally appear together can create new images and open up other avenues of association that might not otherwise be explored. While a poet would be unwise to attempt to rest his or her laurels on such a process, there is definite value in the exercise thereof.

Per jp's comments: 1) "if I'm at a job interview where someone has a problem with me posting a poem that I like on my blog, then there's a major red flag right there." 2) "Back before copyright law, stories belonged to everyone." 3) "Fuck professional rigor."

1) I'm unlcear why fellow professionals inquiring into your adherence to professional standards (such as copyright) should constitute a red flag. Certainly it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for an interlibray loan librarian to be concerned with copyright, or a librarian in charge of reserve materials.

2) Copyright law was instituted in part because myriad publishers believed precisely that "stories belonged to everyone"--and they pirated books by the millions wrested control of art from the artists (and oftentimes without worrying about the quality of the art in their pirated reproductions).

3) I guess I need to be enlightened with respect to abandoning professional standards. For example, if the federal authorities came a-knocking on your library door asking for patron circulation records, do you likewise quip "fuck professional rigor" and then hand over the information?

Per Adrienne: "I'm trying not to take offense at the comment about children's librarian stereotypes, but, like JP, I am failing."

Feel free to take offense. I don't manufacture such sterotypes here in my lab. Nor, I think, are comments like jp's "fuck professional rigor" helpful in dispelling such stereotypes. How is such a comment to be interpreted? Does it mean "I became a public librarian so that I wouldn't have to pay attention to professional standards"? Does it mean "I didn't want to be an academic librarian because they have to follow the rules"? Hey, I'm not intending to pick on jp or public librarianship in general, but with respect to stereotypes, jp's comment qualifies as more an unintended buttressing of the stereotype than a discrediting of it. Her remark comes across as suggesting that she finds "professional rigor" too burdensome a thing to concern herself with--just the sort of burdensome thing she intended to avoid by becoming a public librarian. (Let's leave THAT to the people who care...like those tight-ass academic librarians.) In this case, since what we're discussing is not only a professional standard but the law (vague and byzantine though copyright may be at times), I find it difficult to comprehend how such things can just be chucked aside as being unimportant and negligible.

Per Jeffrey Lee: "It all comes down to money."

I disagree. What copyright is about, at heart, is preserving the right of artists to control the art they produce. I edited and published a short story anthology a few years ago. I wrote a foreword for the book and had another scholar write the introduction. Now imagine that Jane Smith puts my foreword or that scholar's introduction on her website. Does that affect me or the introduction's author financially? No. So, according to what some people here argue, this makes it okay for Jane Smith or any other person to put those documents online without permission...at least until I or my scholar friend raise an objection. In such a case my right to control my own artistic production has been infringed upon--has been stolen. This is what copyright is supposed to protect against and prevent. Yet this appears to be what some folks here are advocating. I do not want anyone infringing upon my rights and, in turn, I do not infringe upon their rights. That seems simple enough. Does someone think I ought not to retain control of my own art? If so, please explain why. Also, please explain what entitles you to infringe upon my individual rights.

Yes, copyright is complex, but that doesn't mean we can't all deal readily with the simpler elements of it in ordinary situations. Librarians who supervise reserve collections at colleges have to know how many copies of a given book s/he can legally put on reserve depending on the number of students in a class. That's the sort of stuff none of us knows. But we're not dealing here with situations that abstruse. Can Adrienne legally reproduce in her website the full text, say, of a John Ciardi poem from the 1970s as a stand-alone entry. The simple answer is no. That poem isn't in the public domain yet, and so reprinting it without permission from the rights holder(s) is not legal. She can get away with it as a full-length quotation in a book review since that falls into fair use, but even then there are limits to what's allowable in that context. If Adrienne writes a review of an anthology of flash fiction (a.k.a. short short stories), she cannot reprint the full text of a single story in her review even if the text in question is only 500 words. Nor could Adrienne quote the entirety of a five-page-long poem without permission. Determining where the cutoff point for length is tricky, but that doesn't mean just ignore copyright and do as you damn well please. That's hardly a response worthy of an educated, intelligent, thoughtful individual.

Typically in books of literary criticism you will indeed encounter poems quoted in their entirety--
along with the standard formal list of acknowledgments revealing that permission was granted to reprint those poems which do not fall into public domain. The fact that the book is a critical/analytical work does not exempt it from copyright obligations. This is normal professional practice. Perhaps the publishers are just playing it extra safe in doing so in order to avoind needless litigation, but it remains a standard publishing practice all the same.

In more complex situations, as they arise, it would seem sufficient to guide one's actions according to the when-in-doubt-leave-it-out rule of thumb. Then again, it's hardly any trouble to ask rights holders for permission in such cases. (We've progressed sufficiently beyond the age of telegraphs and smoke signals to make contacting people a fairly routine, speedy affair.) Then again, one may wish instead to say "fuck professional courtesy" and simply do as one pleases.

Chuck is very right in his belief that the Stevens poem is now in the public domain. I checked into it and the poem dates from the early 1920s (if not earlier). For some reason I was thinking that Stevens's works was a lot more mid-centuryish.

Jeffrey, I really value your oppinion, but I could't get past this part of your comment, "...--it's arbitrary, esoteric and difficult."

It is a *Prooven Fact* that people who don't use the oxford comma are self-centered assholes.

JP understands the comma and wrote a comment that I am going to read once a day for the next week and I may make his last line as my epitaph.

While what you did with your comma, or lack there of, is not wrong according to the rules of the English language, it demonstrates certain contempt for your readers.

What I'm saying is there’s a lack of mutual respect inherent in omitting the Oxford comma.

It’s really a passive-aggressive form of incoherent poetry. That’s why the Associated Press peddles in it; because journalists are always failed poets (and/or novelists) who hate the people who read their shitty stories about "Drug-free School Zones" in the Democrat and Chronicle and the West Fuckville Federalist.

They figure, “if I can’t offend them with my meaningless prose and incomprehensible plots, I’ll make them wonder what the fuck I’m saying when I write that the FM radio listener, ‘likes rock, classic rock, pop rock and country and western rock music.’”

And lastly, In kitchen cups concupiscent curds

Remember that shit.

Sorry for the delay in approving comments. I was experiencing technical difficulties. Good to see that things moved right along in my absence.... :)

Speaking of stereotypes, Craig, I feel compelled to clarify that JP has always led me to believe that he's a "he." Easy enough mistake to make, of course.

Wow! I missed a big day on Friday! : )

When Chuck is cursing on blogs, he writes really cute poems for me, like the following:

Roses are red,

Violets are purple,

I think you’re sweeter,

Than mapyp surple.

I hope my attempt at humor at 3:00am is better than my spelling.

*I* enjoyed it.

I feel that I should weigh in even though the fervor has died down. I agree with Chuck that watat has not broken any laws. Jeffrey was also correct that laws and their enforcement come down to money, laws in this day and age are about money because power and control equal money. Copyright protects the person who retains control not necessarily the artist so, Craig you're wrong it is about money. As for professionalism any time you have to resort to stereotypes and assumptions to support your argument you're in a weak position. JP made a valid point that who you are willing to work for says a lot about your values and standards, he may not have been eloquent but then again the attack on professionalism was barely polite. If you are spoiling for a fight why not show some common decency make a direct statement instead of posing behind a condemning question.

Wow, Adrienne. You have quite the discussion going here. Awesome! Yes, the Frost reference was only a segue--I wasn't comparing Stevens and Frost, though, in general I find Frost much easier to understand.

My understanding about poetry copyright is that quoting one or two lines is fine, but more than that is a violation. I don't think fair use incorporates a whole poem. Of course, if the copyright has expired, you're free to post the entire thing. For my own blog, I would LOVE to find out exactly what's acceptable for fair use because I would like to post more poems in their entirety. (But that may not be possible.) I will certainly post about it at C.S. when I do.

Craig,

If you are still reading at this point, I want to say that I recognize and appreciate your passion for the letter of the law. I, however, disagree with your interpretation of how responsible we are as individuals to the written law. The law of conscience, for me, is often a law that requires me to do more in certain situations than the written law does. Written law prescribes behavior but not character or attitude. We are left to decide those for ourselves. There are those who follow the law to a point who are total assholes as much as there are those who don't follow the law precisely who have a lot more heart. That is what I mean by the law of conscience, which is a far cry from "I can do what I want."

You also seem to be quite stirred up by my use of the phrase "fuck professional rigor." While I'll admit that that post was written in the midst of an emotional reaction, I still heartily endorse the principle behind it. I am a children's librarian because it is a job that doesn't require me to stick to standards and rules that I don't agree with without allowing me input into their interpretation and formation and that allows me the freedom to interpret my job creatively and with flexibility. I'm guessing that those reasons are precisely why you are not a children's librarian and why the job would probably drive you crazy. Regarding my comment about the job interview, the red flag would be that here is a company that expects me to follow rules not because of what they mean but because they are rules. I would die (or get fired) really quickly at a job like that. Hence, "the interview is over."
It's people like you who make sure that people like me get to make money off our art, and for that we are grateful. But don't expect us to conform -- what then would we write or sing or paint about? It's a paradox, to be sure.

PS- thanks for the props, Tammy. I can be more eloquent when I can take more time to formulate my thoughts, but since I'm not handing this in for a grade, I won't worry about it :).

JP- You would get a C+/B- for that particular piece because it was coherent and addressed the task at hand as well as including supporting evidence but the language cost you some points. You could probably argue your way to a B+ though. Although I tend to be generous with the creativity points, I gave bonus points to a student who said Raphael was the red ninja turtle.

And he would be the sort to argue a grade.... ;)

Chuck, I stand humbly, but briefly, before you as the asshole who dropped the comma, but only out of what they used to call in school as "carelessness." I want it on record that I fully agree with and support the comma in a list of things before the "and." It should have been there.

I did really read and agree with your comment. I'm so used to using words as tools to communicate complex information, and really used to arrogant people (engineers) who tell me their incomprehensible sentence is perfectly fine because , "if they can't figure out what that means, they shouldn't be using this [insert high-tech piece of equipment or software code here]." I think I actually like this poem now, especially since it's in the public domain.

Fuck public domain. I'll use it all as I see fit.

JP-I think that was just gratuitous cursing, you should only use it if you really mean it.

I'm sure no one will read this, but here's an interesting article relating the copyright issues mentioned above:

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/177253

I'm reading, and that's a great article. Thanks! :)

It reminds me to ask: what's the word on the street about Evil Dead: The Musical (which I see is closing)? If I lived in NYC, I would have had a hard time resisting going to see it, even though one would think it has to be a complete travesty. Of course, the film itself is a travesty, and look at how successful it's been in the long-term. I'm not what you'd call a fan of the series, but I have a nostalgic love for the original, which I saw when I was maybe in the fifth or sixth grade. After seeing it, a friend and I took every opportunity to quote the "jack of diamonds, ace of spades" bit and then laugh maniacally for a good year or so, so it made an impression in spite of its lack of production values or character development or even a story....

I heard the show the was stupid, but funny. I have to admit, and it's a little embarrassing to me, that I've never seen the movie. I'm embarrassed because it's totally the type of movie that I'm sure I would like and I dig cult zombie films and all. Someday. But I don't know if I should go see the musical version without having seen the original film. Plus it's closing this week I think, and I'll just be getting home. I don't want to go to theatre again this week.