[New-Poetry] Bob Dylan, Plagiarist Poet

[TheOldMole]

I wonder what Mudcat.org is making of this -- that's a site for unreconstructed folkies who hate Dylan for going electric. And I wonder what I think of it, for that matter. I've stolen larger chunks than that to put into poems, but they weren't from other poems.

Here's one:

THE CROCODILE PEOPLE

 

They used to practice cannibalism, until 

they went away from the river 

when the colonists came. It's said 

they have some power over the crocodiles.

 

But since they pulled back, humans are scarce,

reptiles live in trees. Oh, you'll still hear 

the odd story - a child crunch'd, a maiden bathing

surprised by one, two, three, shuffling from the bank.

 

Mostly, though, things change. You lose the taste

for long pig, and make a virtue of it.

Crocodiles, neglected, no longer smile for you.

Their memory is ancient, but shallow.



The entire first stanza of that comes from a Johnny Weissmuller "Jungle Jim" movie, watched on TV one Saturday morning. I heard that line, grabbed the nearest envelope I could find, and wrote it down, knowing that it had some power over me, though I didn't know what. But that's "found poetry," finding the poetic in something that wasn't meant to be poetic. Dylan is finding the poetic in something that was meant to be poetic.  

The great blues composers, like Robert Johnson and Leadbelly, borrowed all the time from earlier songs -- it was an accepted practice. I've heard Leadbelly criticized because "Goodnight Irene" was -- in the critic's view -- essentially a rewrite of a sentimental 19th century lyric. And I've seen the poem in question, not that I could find it right now. It's terrible, and "Goodnight Irene" is a masterpiece. 

I probably shouldn't quote from myself twice in the same note, but this is maybe relevant in a different way. It's a -- not exactly a translation, because I was translating a memory of something I hadn't read in thirty years.


A PAINTER OF REALITY

 

--adapted from the memory of a poem by

 Jacques Prevert, read 30 years earlier

 

There's a story about a painter

  of reality in the South of France

  or one of those islands

  like Ibiza or Majorca

  where the sun's ego runs wild

  and color is a riot

  of civil disobedience

 

In front of this painter is an apple

  on a white plate

  on a window sill

  the color the sun decreed

  the painter of reality

  addresses the apple sternly

  orders it to reveal

  its external core

 

But the apple spins

  in its molecules

  prismatic to the sun's reality

  hermetic to the painter

  of reality

 

He breaks for lunch

  bread and cheese

  white wine

  a boiled potato

  leaving the apple

  to reflect on its self-absorption

 

At just that time

  along comes Picasso

  a spectral swirl

  a many-hued presence

  always where he's needed

 

And Picasso eats the apple

  and the apple says thanks

  and Picasso walks down to the ocean

  leaving a shower of seeds

  strewn across the plate



Prevert had the painter, and the apple, and Picasso, and the apple thanking Picasso for eating it; I'm not sure how much else. I credited him in my epigraph, but my poem was later set to music and recorded by Fred Koller (I think the album may have been released in Italy, Annie), and he didn't include the epigraph. I don't know if the frail flowers are going to be thanking Dylan, but I don't think they'll be cursing him.




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Graham 
  To: NewPoetry & Views 
  Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2006 10:34 PM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob Dylan, Plagiarist Poet


  http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1603668.ece







  ==========================================

  David Graham

  grahamd at ripon.edu

  Home Page:

  http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html

  Poetry Library:

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