Another personal favorite poem that thinks about unintended plagarism. |
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Whiskey BreathYears from now, when I writethat a character’s cheerful scruffiness hung about him like the breath of gin, will I remember Carol Shields’ description on page 118 of ‘small Ceremonies?’ “A cheerful scruffiness hung over the station like whiskey breath” And is that plagiarizing, or selective memory, or the buried stuff we un-dig and take as ours? But it happens, reading Rushdie or Elmore Leonard That particular phrase, a mystical delicacy with words clicks in my mind and makes me pause, to re-read and smile, salt away and I know it’s hung there like a cheese, ripening, waiting out some future knife I am what has been flung through my mind from every source A writer is supposed to use the observed Noticing the stranger sprawled inelegantly, each detail of his clothes, close-set eyes, mole on his cheek, button missing But what of Anne Rice’s images of Venice, even though I’ve been there Do they creep into my work as well a selective memory plagiarized, remembered, borrowed, what? |
This poem is included in Jim Freeman's poetry collection THE SMELL OF TWEED AND TOBACCO available here in print or as an e-Book in your favorite formats. |