My Stepmother's Picture (or "Mother's Day Photograph")

[heslopian]

[youtube]KVc-b3hl7cs[/youtube]

[billy]

Why do you look at me at the beginning of the recording

as for the explanation at the end, while sounding good the fact you tell us takes away from the elegance of what for me would otherwise have been a perfect reading. despite what people say, using a line from someone elses poem is not plagiarism. an example is;

Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women by Anne Sexton

(from a song)

Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was—
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time.

to simply say 'From a song' (she was on about the titel) is not accreditation, it's actually from a dubliners song sung by a guy called ronnie drew, and it's also really famous lol.

if anne sexton can get away with it, so can you

that and the fact you looked at me again at the end

great work as usual jack, thanks

[heslopian]

What don't you like about me looking at you? I'm not going to jump through the screen and bugger you I can see how the explanation would detract from the poem, but for me it's necessary.

[billy]

that good then hehe.

[heslopian]

Just seen the edit you made to your original comment with the Anne Sexton poem. I would have seen it sooner if you'd added it to your last comment Were any lines taken directly from the original Dubliners song (which I've never heard, by the way; when I first read the poem a few years ago I thought she was referencing like an old folk song or something) though, or was it just based on it? Either way, it may have been fine for Anne Sexton but it just isn't for me. I'm sorry but I prefer having the explanation at the end. When Eliot paraphrased the original line he was accused of plagiarism, and I don't want the same charge levelled at me (though I know I don't have quite the same profile as Eliot).

[billy]

yes, the chorus of the song is;

Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women
they'll drive you crazy they'll drive you insane.

Red Ingle wrote the words and music but it was sung by Iain MacKintosh, the dubliners and a few other irish bands did a version.
i think the original was don in the late 40's early 50's, so considering sexton died in her mid 70's (i think) then the bitch is an out and out plagiarist
and considering eliot was called a plagiarist, would that make you a plagiarist of a plagiarist.

which begs the questions; is it okay to steal the work of a plagiarist?

[heslopian]

Anne Sexton died in 1974. Taking the title isn't too bad, though I still think it's a bit cheeky to just say "(from a song)". And Eliot wasn't a plagiarist. He acknowledged his sources, and as his sources were often great Italian and ancient poets I doubt he could get away with "stealing" from them even if he wanted to.

[billy]

shakespeare did why can't he

[heslopian]

Who did Shakespeare steal from?

[billy]

Who did Shakespeare steal from?

here;
marlow, the greeks, the italians to name a few some say that shakespeare was not even his real name. use the link and decide what you think

[heslopian]

Interesting stuff. I assume you support the theory that Shakespeae was a fraud?

[billy]

ask me in the poetry discussion forum and i'll tell you