[New-Poetry] Bob Dylan, Plagiarist Poet

[David Bircumshaw]

A fact not probably widely known on either side of the Atlantic is that 'Goodnight Irene' is the fan song of the Bristol Rovers football club; now to hear the song burred in a scrumpy fueled 'Brissol' West Country is an experience and a perspective beyond Leadbelly. I have no idea where they picked up the song from, but it comes out as if a traditional rural English folk song (even though Bristol is urban)

Best

Dave


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: TheOldMole 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views 
  Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 1:10 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Bob Dylan, Plagiarist Poet


  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:

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

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










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