[Thomas Newton]

I have written a sonnet sequence (8) about science fiction books I have read. They either summarize the book or are about a main scene in the book, e.g.:

LONELINESS

They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night. And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. -–2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke


ALONE! A billion miles from Earth. His crew
Was dead. His main computer, HAL, was dead.
The ships sound system blared Bach's music through
His brain, and Saturn filled the sky ahead.
A hundred thousand generations had
Passed while the Star Gate waited for mankind,
But now the precious passenger was clad
By stasis field and death was far behind.
His memories, all he had ever been,
Were stored in frozen lattices. He was
Intelligent, pure energy and when
He cried They soon applied a mental gauze.
Now he was light, not blood and flesh and bone,
And he knew he would never be ALONE.


Is there a copyright problem here? setting, characters, summary, plot-—do I need permission from the copyright holder? Is it expensive? Does the copyright holder even want to be bothered to sue? there is little money in poetry. Is it just a question money? big corporations, etc. underground publication? private readings only?

Thomas Newton

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Thomas,

Speaking as someone in the SF field professionally, who has even written and published SF poetry using other authors characters, the answer is yes and no.

Let me explain.

To create a derivative work, you legally need permission from the copyright holder, who in SF is usually the author or the author's estate, excepting big media properties, such as Star Trek and Buffy, where it's the studio.

However, while there is a need for legal permission, there's also a long tradition of authors and other copyright holders turning a blind eye to fanzines, so long as they're being run for fun, not making any profit off it, and most importantly, not claiming to own or admitting to be violating the copyrights of the copyright holders. It's the whole don't ask/don't tell section of the universe where slash fiction exists, which started with Kirk/Spock, and has gone on to Buffy/Faith, Potter/Malfoy, Smeagol/Dobby and god knows what else.

So, if you want to put your poems up on your web page, or send them to a mailing list or some fanzine, go for it. Yes, you technically need permission. No, no one really cares. You're free advertising for the original work, and sending rabid lawyers after the fanbase is generally a bad idea.

However, if the poem is going to be coming out somewhere where you make money from it, or at least it has a certain degree of prominence, you do need permission of the copyright holder.

Permission isn't hard to get, so long as you talk directly to the author and don't talk to lawyers or agents, who are in the business of getting people to pay money. For example, my poem "Ferdinand Feghoot and the Zero-G Nunnery," was published in the World Science Fiction Convention souvenir program, and later reprinted in the premiere of The Buckeye. It uses Ferdinand Feghoot, who's a creation of the late great Reginald Bretnor, who wrote many stories with this character over the years for Fantasy and Science Fiction and other magazines. Fred Flaxman, his literary executor, gave permission to the 60th WorldCon to have Feghoot as the imaginary guest of honor, with various writers attending the convention writing Feghoots for the program book. This is usual, and there are anthologies of stories done all the time in this manner. For the Buckeye reprint, however, I contacted Flaxman and asked his permission to reprint the poem, which he gratiously gave, gratis. Publication both times was accompanied by a copyright notice.

To give another example, at the recent San Diego Comicon, Neil Gaiman was showing the preliminary photography for his new movie Mirror Mask. As background for the film was the song "Cornflake Girl" by Tori Amos, who is one of Neil's best friends, and as Neil said, "It's nice to be able to use the music of people who won't sue you."

With the Clarke poem, so far as I know, Clarke is still around and living in Sri Lanka, and as I've heard anecdotally, it's pretty easy to find out his phone number and call him, since there aren't many Clarke's in the local phone book. As I heard the story, Robert Silverberg and several other SF authors were having an argument about something Clarke had written, and decided to solve it just by calling him.

However, as I mentioned, it's probably not necessary. Your only conceivable sales venue for such a poem is a Clarke tribute anthology, which I believe there have been before and will undoubtedly be more, which will already have Clarke's blessing and therefore no copyright troubles.

[Thomas Newton]

Kevin,

Thank you so much for the in-depth explanation. I was hoping you would answer. I trust your judgment. I have been thinking about that for years. I am trying to network more. You can’t get everything from books. But being a hermit, I feel like a porcupine among the rabbits.

Thomas

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Thomas,

Well, if you want to promote yourself as a poet in the SF field and come out of your hermitage, easy suggestion: The World Fantasy Convention.

http://www.seahunt.org/wfc/

This year, it's being held in Washington DC, as always on Halloween weekend. It is the high-powered networking convention of the fantasy, horror and science fiction fields, in basically that order.

Sit in the bar with a drink and schmooze. Have a sheaf of all your poems there for people to read. Years back, at the World Fantasy Convention when it was held in Tuscon, Jane Yolen read one of John Ford's poems and asked if it had been previously published, because if not, she wanted it for one of her anthologies.

Another option, which can be done at the same time, is to join the SFPA, the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Full info here:

http://www.dm.net/~bejay/sfpa.htm

I ran into them last year at Worldcon. Nice people, great at promoting poetry, your best bet within the field.

You can also network via email and mail, but it's far less potent than person-to-person meetings. Which is why the SF field has conventions.

You'll also have local cons down in Florida, but honestly, you'll do yourself more of a favor going to World Fantasy.