[New-Poetry] Bob Dylan, Plagiarist Poet

[TheOldMole]

Probably from Lonnie Donegan.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Bircumshaw 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views 
  Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 6:42 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Bob Dylan, Plagiarist Poet


  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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