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Alan Sondheim keeps track of how many references to his name there are on the Google search engine. I thought I'd try the experiment with my own, but too many people share my name. I tried adding "poetry" as an additional search criterion, and pretty well all the references were to me. I followed up some of the links I didn't recognise. One of them took me to a poetry workshop bulletin board, where someone had posted one of my poems, in its entirety. The context suggested they were using it as an example of a well-wrought poem about flowers. I was flattered by that, of course, but what about the small, but undeniable, breach of my copyright? I was delighted. My poetry was thought worth ripping off. It was a palpable assertion of my identity as a poet. I don't condone breaches of copyright, though. Poets have a right to control distribution of their work, if they want to. -- Peter http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/