Concerning the poet who was short-listed for a prize, then exposed as a plagiarist, but might have escaped humiliation if he had discussed it with his mother before she developed Alzheimer’s
You probably skipped this news story. It’s about poetry. CJ Allen once copied from another poet and has had to withdraw from the shortlist for this year’s Forward Prize. In case we’ve forgotten what paperbacks look like, the BBC report includes a photograph taken inside a bookshop. A woman in a coat is facing some full shelves. No men around. I can’t read the titles, but they won’t be poetry. Poetry sections aren’t so crammed, and we prefer to browse celebrity bio or detective fiction. If she’s put something under her coat, or in that bulging bag of hers, I hope she remembers to pay for it. We all know it’s wrong to steal.
Matthew Welton was the poet-victim, and he himself discovered that Allen had pilfered his work. Poets, of course, feature in the pocket-size volume of individuals who read poetry. But Welton is not just a poet. He is a literary Poirot. Hearing Allen read his poems at a public event, Monsieur Welton recognised his own words and bought a couple of his rival’s editions to check for evidence of plagiarism. It was plentiful.
When Allen viewed his royalty report and saw these sales appear, he must have felt the same thrill of pleasure that every author feels. Prizes can raise a writer’s profile and increase sales. Allen’s profile has certainly been raised. We may as well believe him when he says his Forward specimen is original. The title must be his for a start: Explaining the Plot of ‘Blade Runner’ to my Mother who has Alzheimer’s. You couldn’t copy something like that inadvertently and you would never do it on purpose.
Poets are themselves entitled, even expected, to make mistakes, short of stealing other people’s work. Note the missing comma in the Blade Runner title, before who, a slip which reveals that Allen has at least two mothers, one of whom has Alzheimer’s and one of whom has not, and probably hundreds more, matrons who replicate in perfect shape, but then decline, sniff once a year, or promptly pass away.
The poem is not bad. Two or three lines need cutting where he explains too much, but the conversational style, the teasing, yet compassionate tone, and the coping-with-a-sick-parent theme are all in vogue at the moment. Long titles are also fashionable. I’m thinking of that recent novel, ‘The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared.’ CJ Allen, the man whose age I don’t know because he’s not in Wikipedia, who pulled out of the prize and disappeared, must have thought he’d done everything right: ‘I didn’t copy this time, I thought up a long-winded title and I got some comments from Mum (the Alzheimer’s one).'
But he was shot down all the same. He might just as well have called it: Explaining the plot of ‘Blade Runner’ to my mother who has Alzheimer’s, which she hasn’t always had, not when I was cribbing from Welton and she pretended not to notice, just waited for me to crucify myself.
Once upon a time we were convinced that short titles and long texts were more likely to sell. But poets are a perverse lot. Item: Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798, and Resolving to Leave Dorothy at Home in Future. These days we have CJ Allen, whose near-prize experience takes up fewer than twenty lines and boasts a healthy title that can stand on its own eighteen feet like an opening verse.
CJ’s poem has received several ‘likes’ on the apoemaday website. At first I thought this was a laxative remedy. It may well be, judging from some of the poetry on display. Glance through the comments which readers have left and you’ll find further reference to physical exertion, coitus, for example, and the placement of reproductive organs in the mouth, usually a male organ, and one mouth in particular. I wonder what other people are saying, the ones who don’t like the poem.
Matthew Welton was the poet-victim, and he himself discovered that Allen had pilfered his work. Poets, of course, feature in the pocket-size volume of individuals who read poetry. But Welton is not just a poet. He is a literary Poirot. Hearing Allen read his poems at a public event, Monsieur Welton recognised his own words and bought a couple of his rival’s editions to check for evidence of plagiarism. It was plentiful.
When Allen viewed his royalty report and saw these sales appear, he must have felt the same thrill of pleasure that every author feels. Prizes can raise a writer’s profile and increase sales. Allen’s profile has certainly been raised. We may as well believe him when he says his Forward specimen is original. The title must be his for a start: Explaining the Plot of ‘Blade Runner’ to my Mother who has Alzheimer’s. You couldn’t copy something like that inadvertently and you would never do it on purpose.
Poets are themselves entitled, even expected, to make mistakes, short of stealing other people’s work. Note the missing comma in the Blade Runner title, before who, a slip which reveals that Allen has at least two mothers, one of whom has Alzheimer’s and one of whom has not, and probably hundreds more, matrons who replicate in perfect shape, but then decline, sniff once a year, or promptly pass away.
The poem is not bad. Two or three lines need cutting where he explains too much, but the conversational style, the teasing, yet compassionate tone, and the coping-with-a-sick-parent theme are all in vogue at the moment. Long titles are also fashionable. I’m thinking of that recent novel, ‘The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared.’ CJ Allen, the man whose age I don’t know because he’s not in Wikipedia, who pulled out of the prize and disappeared, must have thought he’d done everything right: ‘I didn’t copy this time, I thought up a long-winded title and I got some comments from Mum (the Alzheimer’s one).'
But he was shot down all the same. He might just as well have called it: Explaining the plot of ‘Blade Runner’ to my mother who has Alzheimer’s, which she hasn’t always had, not when I was cribbing from Welton and she pretended not to notice, just waited for me to crucify myself.
Once upon a time we were convinced that short titles and long texts were more likely to sell. But poets are a perverse lot. Item: Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798, and Resolving to Leave Dorothy at Home in Future. These days we have CJ Allen, whose near-prize experience takes up fewer than twenty lines and boasts a healthy title that can stand on its own eighteen feet like an opening verse.
CJ’s poem has received several ‘likes’ on the apoemaday website. At first I thought this was a laxative remedy. It may well be, judging from some of the poetry on display. Glance through the comments which readers have left and you’ll find further reference to physical exertion, coitus, for example, and the placement of reproductive organs in the mouth, usually a male organ, and one mouth in particular. I wonder what other people are saying, the ones who don’t like the poem.
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