Copyright and attribution
 

Good people,

Might someone point me to a comprehensive discussion of copyright and attribution as it applies to poetry? That is, how to give proper credit to the authors of materials that are incorporated into one's poems. I'm thinking in particular of sentences or short passages that are incorporated as 'found' poetry.

I know how it's done with academic papers---well, I used to know---but I have no idea how this works with poems. This won't be parody, so I imagine the restrictions are rather tight. Then again, I doubt if I would seek to publish any of this planned series of poems, but I do want to give credit where it is due and to point the reader to the original sources.

I don't want to fill the poems with footnotes, but will if this is what's expected. Ideally I could just give all the detail in a 'Notes' section.

Any help will be MUCH appreciated.

Kevin

P.S. How embarrassing is it to misspell something in one's headline?

It's hard to answer a question like this in the abstract. There's no ready-made formula to apply. It's always a balancing of factors about which there can be frequent good-faith disagreement.

Roger, thank you for your response. Undoubtedly you're correct.

I'll have to fish around for actual examples, I guess.

Again, thank you.

No worries...
If that ever happens again, Kevin, just PM your Fairy Godmother, who will wave her wand. This time I did it without being asked ;)

Jayne

Jayne, you are an angel! Thank you!

If it's helpful, here's what I do at the end of some of my poems, when I don't want an epigraph at the beginning but still want to acknowledge borrowed material:

I don't bother with page numbers. Anyone who tracks down Rose's book will end up reading the whole thing from beginning to end at least twice anyway. In fact, I think I'll read it again right now.

Thank you, Julie. Your approach is the sensible one and fair to all.