roger day wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Your play was useful in that it allowed me to expose a little of my
>history to the list, so I tips me hat to you, whoever you are!
>
>Glad to be of service! I hope my bit-part fitted well in your theatre
></bows to rapturous applause>.
>
>I've thought of taking a Poetry for Dummies course because I've
>sometime felt that I've been missing something, something that when I
>write goes astray. Of course, books and courses are never the answer.
>
>
And now Dr. Ken's Konfession. For years I believed such a thing
existed. Poetry for Dummies. If they can publish books like "Sex For
Dummies" ("Oh, THAT's what that's for! Hot damn!") and "Monte Carlo
Simulations for Dummies" (not, I assume, how to win at Vingt et Un), why
not "Poesie for Dummies" as well?
Years ago, feeling that I was cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
having no idea what a poem was, how to write one (even though I had), or
how to judge one without some Professor saying it was good, I tried to
find the magic book that had all the answers. The book I chose? <sit
down> William Empson's _Seven Types of Ambiguity_. No joke. No help.
Oh, another plagiarism tale. True story. 1973, I'm a teaching
assistant. Three profs and me, the Shakespeare lecture course. I
thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. Then some kid in my personal
section hands me a paper, I forget on what, but as I'm reading it I'm
thinking "This kid writes fantastically, he can think on paper. Oh
God--wait a minute." I focus on the kid. The kid is nice, not a doofus
but not THAT bright. All of a sudden the writing sounds familiar. I am
the guy writing a dissertation on audience/reader response in
Shakespeare, and before I dropped him on his Scottish crown, Macbeth was
in there. So I knew the classic critical writings: A. C. Bradley, c.
1904. I look at Bradley. I look back at the kid. It's the same
words. Bradley didn't plagiarize the kid, I guess. I forget how, but I
got a message to the kid to come to the office I was using. He did not
seem like a jive-artist, just a jerk. He walks in totally unfraid and
totally clueless. I confronted him with his unattributed quotes and
Bradley's text. I thought the kid was going to cry, then faint. He had
no idea that what he was doing was not kosher. NOBODY had ever taught
this kid about plagiarism. He literally did not know he'd done it. It
was easier for the teachers along the way to ignore the whole greasy
issue until it got to the desk of a 31-year-old teaching assistant. I
told him to get back to work, he had something like two days to correct
the mess he'd made. The paper turned out to be not too hot but it was
at least HIS not too hot.
Ken
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