The Poetry Code

Jarman on Stevens, the ethics of sharing poetry, and the Poetry Mixtape podcast is coming this month!

I wanted to give a special welcome to all my new subscribers. And thank you to everyone else here, especially my paid subscribers. (This fall semester of graduate school would be very difficult without you!)

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Some of you may recall that a couple of weeks ago I only had FOUR MINUTES to get books due to the A/C breaking down at the local library. I wanted to let you know that I did go back the other day and get that Wallace Stevens collection I was seeking. And in an act of providence yesterday I received the latest copy of the Hudson Review which had commentary by Mark Jarman, Of Mere Being: Five Poems by Wallace Stevens. (Sorry to say that it looks like it is available to subscribers only, but if you can get your hands on the Summer 2023 edition it’s an interesting read, as are the other articles, reviews, poetry and short stories.)

Jarman actually mentions six poems in his essay: “Earthy Anecdote,” “Re-Statement of Romance,” “Banjo Boomer,” “The Woman in Sunshine,” “Farewell Without a Guitar,” and “Of Mere Being.”

Of these six, only “Earth Anecdote” is in the public domain:

Every time the bucks went clattering,
Over Oklahoma
A firecat bristled in the way.

Wherever they went,
They went clattering.
Until they swerved,
In a swift, circular line,
To the right,
Because of the firecat.

Or until they swerved,
In a swift, circular line,
To the left,
Because of the firecat.

The bucks clattered.
The firecat went leaping,
To the right, to the left,
And
Bristled in the way.

Later, the firecat closed his bright eyes
And slept.

As the first work in Harmonium, the debut of Stevens as a poet, “Earth Anecdote” sets the playful, peculiar tone for what is to come in the collection. With titles like “The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage,” “The Comedian as the Letter C,” “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle,” “The Snow Man,” and “The Emperor of Ice Cream” one expects some humor ahead but what the reader is treated to is poetic virtuosity. Of course, Jarman chooses five poems as waypoints in the transformation of Stevens from sportive to somber poet. In what is considered his last poem, “Of Mere Being” you see the solitary figure of the palm “at the end of the mind.” It is interesting that the two images that bookend Wallace Stevens’ poet life are the leaping firecat and a palm tree at the edge of space.

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As you may have noticed, I don’t share complete poems unless they are in public domain or if I have express permission from the author or publisher. This has caused the slight delay in getting my Poetry Mixtape podcast out. I wanted to take the time to get the blessings of some poets and make sure the featured works are not subject to copyright.

My friends may not know about this interesting document, the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry, which was created in 2011 by the Center for Media and Social Impact in partnership with The Poetry Foundation. The guide presents the current consensus about acceptable practices for fair use of copyrighted work and was created over the course of two years with the collaboration of poets, editors, publishers, and experts in copyright law and new media.

From the introduction,

Poetry, as a highly allusive art form, fundamentally relies on the poet’s ability to quote, to copy, and to “play” with others’ language, and poetry scholars and commentators equally rely on their ability to quote the poetry they are discussing. In fact, poets generally acknowledge that essentially everything they do in their workaday lives, from making their poems to writing about poetry to teaching poetry, builds on the work of others. In the group conversations, poets communicated a general sense that their ability to do their work with confidence was often impeded by institutional regulations based on very straitened interpretations of copyright. They lacked clear guidance as to what material might be available in the public domain. Moreover, they were constrained by their own lack of certainty about what uses are and are not fair within the practices of poetry. While they certainly wish to appropriately control their own work, and to make money where money is to be made, poets also expressed a strong wish to affirm the importance of their ability to make reasonable unlicensed uses of copyrighted material and their support for such uses by others of their own works. In this, the poets both exemplified the tensions inherent in copyright law and the fair use doctrine and heartily endorsed the values undergirding fair use.

I am glad this document exists as a guide—though I think parts are a bit squishy. And I tend to not get too squishy on legal issues—likely a result of having worked with and for lawyers quite a bit in my younger years. But I don’t follow rules for the sake of following rules. My governing motivation is to treat all beings ethically and with the respect they are due, and that includes poets who deserve recognition for their work and compensation when appropriate. I tend to be more scrupulous than a lot of people. There are times when I agonize over fair use in my writing, especially since I technically get funds via this forum.

Here are two of the very many books our family has that feature the word “ethics” on the cover!

All that said, I am clearing the way for the Poetry Mixtape podcast that will be available soon via my Substack page. Each episode will begin with a personal dedication to one of my subscribers, and I will read the piece specifically chosen for them. I’ll explain why I picked the poem and why I think it is meaningful, and hopefully everyone listening will find it relevant—not just the person receiving the dedication.

The difference between Poetry Mixtape and other poetry podcasts is the personal nature of my show. This is really a thank you to my subscribers (especially my paid subscribers) for being there for me, and I want to show you that I think of you as individual supporters.

In this age of influencers with followers in the hundreds of thousands or more, it is easy to forget the actual scale of human interaction. I am not the type of person who wants to scale up just for numbers, for clicks.

As I wrote before,

“A key to making poetry relevant today is to make sharing it intensely personal…

When people are forced to remember poetry, they often forget it. People hate being forced to memorize poetry. But there is so much good stuff out there that ought to be remembered. When you meet someone who shares poetry out of love, it has a better chance at sticking. It’s about trust. Something that seems to be growing scarce.

I hope you trust me enough to check out the podcast when it appears!