Doghead's Cosmic Bar

'Tis time to wash your face in the dew of May morning, to welcome warm weather and dance with joy.

And eat scorpions!

And get ready for Cinco De Mayo! Tacos, hot and spicy chips and all the guacamole you can down...oh and a lot of Corona – Dos XX or Tecate ..Now where is the salt and lime.

Jose Cuervo!!
He was a friend of mine!
I used to drink him with a little salt and lime!

So what if it doesn't rhyme.

It doesn't matter if it doesn't rhyme. It's assonance. Perfectly legitimate poetic technique.

So...what's an illegitimate poetic technique? *flicks tongue*

I guess my poems might fit that bill.

So...what's an illegitimate poetic technique? *flicks tongue*

Plagiarism?

Unless it's research. Or allusion. Or it's really cool and fits in well. Or your borrowing content to make a fan site or a bot (which is not poetry per se, but has a poetic license all the same) .

Maybe mediocre sentimentality is a greater poetic sin that taking another's work as your own. To be honest and original but sappy and boring, must be worse than to steal great thoughts. If this were not so, great poetry would be about how people like their cats and how small children are cute, and each one would be an original though oh how one's cat or child is the first to be so admired.

- When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,
He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what he thought 'e might require,
'E went an' took--the same as me.
- Rudyard Kipling

I think Kipling stole that from Xena though. Or me. Maybe I told him to write that, but without the silly accent.

"Your" for "you're" is pretty illegitimate too. Where did that damned edit button go?

Oh, you can plagiarize all ya want, so long as ya cite your sources!

Citations break up the poem and make it difficult to scan much less feel.

I think (Decartes, 1641)that I shall never see (Kilmer, 1914)
citations done creatively
On giants' shoulder's I may stand (Bernard of Chartres, 1159, Newton, 1676)
Pirated treasure in my hand
As o'er my scrolls your eyes may roll,
I hope you're pleased with all I stole;
Words here and there I've plundered snug,
And sucked out meaning like a bug. (Pope, 1728)
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears. (Shelley, 1819)

References (of a sort—things I could easily find or make up)

Bernard (1159) Hey all this stuff is from wikipedia, if there is no easy citation to paste, you won’t see a proper reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants

Descartes, R (translated by John Cottingham), Meditations on First Philosophy, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes vol. II (edited Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch; Cambridge University Press, 1984) ISBN 0-521-28808-8.

Kilmer, Joyce (1914). Trees. website published by Miriam A. Kilmer, which cites Kilmer, Kenton. Memories of my Father, Joyce Kilmer (Joyce Kilmer Centennial, 1993) ISBN 978-0963752406, Accessed May 2007.

Newton, (1676) see my reference for “Bernard”. Whatever.

Pope, Alexander (1963). The Poems of Alexander Pope. John Butt, ed. Yale UP: New Haven.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1819) Men of England.

Sonora, you have a point. All's fair in love and poetry. I remember a character from an Aussie movie who was an unemployed social security (we call it the dole) bludger who considered himself a poet. He figured that if you say it's a poem, then it is. Here's one of his offerings, directed at his mate's occasional girlfriend.

"You are an idiot,
You are a bitch,
You shit me to tears,
I'm going down the pub."

On that note I think I'll have a pint of Dogh'd's finest.