[Allen Tice]

Thanks Jim,
Maybe a useful parallel might be the momentary visual echo by others in their films of what is truly an iconic visual image from Ingmar Bergman’s film “The Seventh Seal” where at the end a personified death figure leads a train of individuals along the horizon on a hill. I’ve seen homages to that at least two or three times. The original is stark, unforgettable.

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Let's imagine that I found a marvelous poem by someone else and want to call attention to it gently with a spotlight reference, yet am concerned that mentioning the other author might not work too well in my effort. How to reassure the other author that no malice is involved, nor is there any attempt to steal that person's thunder, but rather to praise it?

Again, being the voice of pragmatism, if they're alive, ask them? And if they aren't available to ask, ask their agent or publisher. And if they're dead, ask their estate. Agents, publishers are (generally) humans, too. My advice based on lived experience would be to make sure you are very direct and straightforward in your request, rather than overtly flowerly or opaque in your language - be specific about how and why you're using the author in question.

Sarah-Jane

[Allen Tice]

S-J,
Very good.

Just for fun, can you or anyone else imagine a situation where on this type of topic something that works in practice doesn’t work in theory?

Artists are sometimes super competitive. The actual dialectic of what you suggest, reasonably in fact, assumes a lot about, well, artists, who are, as we know, if they are any good, exquisitely intense people. I’m sorry because I don’t have good modern examples and have to go classical here: when the Roman poet Ovid “flirted” with the older Roman poet Horace, it would have been indelicate and disastrous to have named names. Frenemy
is a term that would have applied there I think.

Yet all that isn’t quite what this thread is about, which is, how best to use good stuff that deserves thoughtful although quiet lauding. Not parody, praise.

[RCL]

Allen,

Your last statement defines a pastiche verse, such as this turkey for the holiday:

After Robert Burns: A Red, Red Rose


A Red, Red Snood

My turkey has a red, red snood
And when he runs it wobbles.
My turkey’s snood detects what food
Causes garbled gobbles.

So soft and plump are you my fowl,
So heavy you can’t fly,
But plucked, without your cowl,
You’ll brown as you deep-fry.

And when you’re bronzed by the deep-fry,
You’ll be our honored guest,
And all the kids will sing and sigh
And praise you as the best!

I’ll bet that after all this trouble,
In heaven for fowl foods,
You’ll grin and gobble as we gobble
All but red, red snoods.

[Allen Tice]

Well, my love is like a rose that newly glows in June, April, May, and all months with or without the letter R. You didn’t spare the horses to speed your poem in time for Thanksgiving. It’s timely and cute, careening close to gentle parody. I’m struggling to find a workable example of what I mean among living Eratosphere people without scraping the curb. Maybe Ann Drysdale, who writes so well, has done something one of us could echo with an air kiss. A houseboat image in another person’s poem; I wouldn’t dare try that yet because I’m unwilling to act like I’m up to her level. That’s the idea though.

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Allen Tice

Just for fun, can you or anyone else imagine a situation where on this type of topic something that works in practice doesn’t work in theory?

Personally, I don't think structuring this poem in a way that is so patently derivative from this poem does the impact any favors whatsoever. Others may disagree, and may feel that the nod to another poem makes the shocking content of the newer poem more tolerable. I think it would have been more effective being taken on its own terms, though.

[Allen Tice]

Wow, Julie, wow. A painful first poem.

[John Riley]

I published a poem entitled "Middle Age" a few years back that was a reaction to a poem by Robert Lowell. I had an epigraph to acknowledge that and the editor of the journal insisted I remove it. He wouldn't publish the poem if I didn't so I removed it, but I still think it wasn't the right thing to do and do not understand why he was so insistent I not acknowledge the influence of another poem and poet.

[Julie Steiner]

John, I've never understood the prevailing desire to cater to the elitist assholery of certain readers (real or imagined) who take offense when given info that an English Literature Ph.D. wouldn't need, but that normal people might find useful.

A curious business model, isn't it? Make as many people as possible feel excluded and intimidated by the art form we're supposedly trying to promote? And how has turning poetry into such an inside joke been working out, sales-wise, over the past century or so?

[W T Clark]

Oh, we're not going to get into "modernism has made poetry impossible for the average reader to understand, make poetry accessible again!!!!!" arguments are we? I thought such silly ideas had been put to bed years ago. If the work of understanding a poem take longer than five minutes, then at least that poem is intellectually engaging. Art has a right to be difficult, if it is truly mimetic of human experience.
Hopefully, Julie, we're not heading toward that argument, are we?

Also, judging poetry's popularity on sales figures is a very capitalist way of commodifying quality, isn't it?


Though, I will admit, I utterly agreee with you when it comes to giving information.