Is It Just Me?

I know I'm not exactly a spring chicken - err rooster, but I think I am relatively open minded. Perhaps I'd draw the line at being hip. I mean that would be ok if you thought I was hip, but I'm not really trying to fool anyone here.

As I read other blogs, something I see, has sort of hung in the back of my mind... In the little space where annoying things seem to go and set up shop and just hang out till you evict them or something.

Understand, I'm not trying to be judgmental. That is NOT my reason for this post and I certainly am not going to point fingers. Still, something is gnawing at me and I am starting to wonder if it is just me.

I see from time to time other bloggers who will post another's poem in its entirety. The interesting thing is, people don't seem very often to post some other blogger poet's work, though I have seen it done on very rare occasion. What I do see is people posting the complete text of the works of very established poets. Often deceased, but not always.

Myself, I would never think of posting another bloggers poem without first getting permission. And that seems to be a prevailing view of almost everyone else out there. Am I being totally old fashioned by applying that same standard to say the works of Robert Frost or Sharon Olds? I know some works are in the public domain. But for those that aren't, if I am going to reference them in a post, I may use a line or two or a stanza to illustrate a point, or often link the entire poem from somewhere else on the internet. But without permission of the poet or copyright holder, I would not feel right reposting it in my blog.

Someone is probably going to say, "Michael, get with the times." File sharing is rampant, etc, but as artists, as poets, as writers, should not we respect the work of others to the same degree we would expect them to treat our work?

What say you?

poetry copyright
ethics

Happy for a Little Rest

I wouldn't say I slept like a baby last night but I was able to sleep better at least part of the night.

KC Metro Verse meeting last night - a very sparse attendance - unlike the previous.

I was introduced to the work of Raymond Carver. His bio can be found here. One of the poems read was Happiness.

The last two stanzas of this poem strike me fascinating because he sets this stage for happiness in a moment of beauty that is not defined by death, ambition or as he says, "even love". An abstract, defined in this instance by the absence of two abstracts and death playing any role. It is a peculiar approach, but I like it because it has in a way, brought simplicity to what happiness can be.

Such beauty that for a minute / death and ambition, even love, / doesn't enter into this.// Happiness. It comes on / unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, / any early morning talk about it.//

Elusive Sleep

"Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep." ~ Fran Lebowitz

As the song goes, "Last night, I couldn't get to sleep at all..." And this would be several days now. I attribute it largely to new medication so I don't see this ending anytime soon. I think I have actually had one good night of sleep since I started it. Now, I suppose if I felt life was actually happening while the sleep isn't, I could at least feel there was a reasonable trade off. Fortunately it has not been a problematic during the day.

Meanwhile, I feel my creativity is less impacted by my new medication then the previous.

If you've followed my blog for any length of time, you likely know that one of the blogs I try to routinely read is - Ivy Is Here.

I enjoyed her most recent post with a heart warming story about her mother's reaction to her poetry. It's a great story, go over and read it if you haven't already.

I was already aware that Ivy Alvarez has extensively researched and written of Sylvia Plath. Should she find a publisher for her manuscript she has a customer here!

Thanks Peeps!

Oh, I forgot...

I wanted to thank the readers of Stick Poet because I see over the weekend we passed 16000 unique hits! Thank you all!


Michael Wells

Plath Discovery

For some reason I find the literary remains of writers to be fascinating stuff. I believe we often get to see a different picture of a writer by material that surfaces postmortem and has otherwise been out of the view of the vast public. Sometimes it is a early draft of a published work and we get to see some progression and by that can visualize the mental progression of the writer. Or it may take the form of letters between peers or family or other significant people in their life. And then there is always the possibility of that lost or unknown piece of work that we get a view of for the first time. I find all of these possibilities utterly fascinating. It is almost like studying their DNA. You learn more about who they were.

So last night I was like a giddy kid in a candy store upon reading that pages and notes from an unpublished novel by Sylvia Plath have been discovered among documents left by the Ted Hughes estate to Emory University in Atlanta. [source]

The papers evidently comprise some notes and I believe two chapters of a work that was to be a fictionalization of an American girl who moves to London and marries her poet lover. The title of the book novel was Falcon Yard which was the place in Cambridge where Plath met Hughes, her future husband and bit him.

It was a known fact that such a novel was written by Plath as it is mentioned in her journals. Falcon Yard was meant to be a gift to her husband. A bestselling romantic comedy that would be successful enough for them to be able to get on with writing poetry. It was generally assumed that the manuscript had been destroyed.

Some of the material will be on display starting Wednesday at the Grolier Club in New York, starting Wednesday in an exhibit of Plath and Hughes material.

The archives at Emory University of the Hughes estate which contain Plath's material as well total two and a half tons of letters, poems, drafts, proofs, etc. God, I'd love to be able to sift through it.

Sylvia Plath Poetry Literature

Saving the Weekend

This morning is flush with the sun's welcome and I sit here with a cup of coffee (God, I actually had no caffeine yesterday) and attempt to establish a foothold on today's opportunity.

I did not sleep well last night but I am willing to forgive and forget that for the day. The weekend teeters on the brink of exhaustion and I must save it from itself while there is time. This will of course take magic. The magic of words. The right words and in their appropriate order. Let it Begin.

Web stat sheet rates literary heavyweights - Los Angeles Times

Judging a book by cost per word or cost per ounce. Amazon.com has the stats.