Licensed Premises, page 8
They’re the best ones.
Alright, Frank.
Thanks, lad.
Simon was working on the next issue when he got an email from Nigel asking to meet up. He said he wanted to discuss something very important, and possibly very damaging, but he didn’t want to do it by email.
Nigel was into his second pint before he finally got to the point.
There’s a poet in your magazine. Frank Campbell?
Oh yeah?
How well do you know him?
We have a few pints now and again. Nice guy.
I see, okay. Well, the thing is, and this is a delicate point, so I just want to make sure that we are fine to discuss it.
Of course.
You’re absolutely sure?
Yes.
I don’t want us to fall out over this.
I wish you’d get to the point, Nigel.
Well, it’s … I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. Okay well, look, it has come to my attention that Campbell, in a word, is something of a plagiarist.
In what way?
Well, one of the poems in your last issue, and another from issue two, I think.
Really?
Yes, it seems that way.
How do you know?
Well, I’ve had this email.
What email?
Chap calls himself ‘the poetry detective’.
Are you having a laugh?
No.
Who is this guy?
I don’t know. But he’s all over the papers. He contacted me because we’ve known each other for years. He knows I’m based here, thought I might know about the magazine.
So you know his name then?
Yes.
What’s he called?
Jeremy.
Jeremy?
Look, he emailed me a breakdown of both poems. I printed them out. He doesn’t have any axe to grind with you, you can be sure of that. Here’s the two poems you’ve printed, and here’s the originals, he said, passing the papers to Simon.
Simon read through them. It seemed undeniable. Cheeky bastard, he said.
And these aren’t the only ones. Jeremy has looked at all of Campbell’s poems he can find.
It must just be a mistake. Like he didn’t remember where the lines were from, or something.
Well, I think you’re being favourable there, Simon.
I’m going to speak to him about it first, the cheeky bastard. I mean, this damages the magazine as well.
Certainly could.
Christ’s sake.
Time for another drink I would say. Care for another?
Dead right.
So, you say there’s more? said Simon, when Nigel came back from the bar.
Apparently. Mainly in Australia I think, Australian poets he’s ripped off, I mean.
Jesus.
A few days later, Simon met up with Frank again.
Alright, lad?
No, I’m not alright, Frank.
What’s the score?
I’ll tell you what the score is, fuckface, you’ve been ripping off other people’s poems.
Hey, first of all, you don’t talk to your elders like that, Simon. And second, where’s your proof?
I’ll show you the proof, grandad, it’s here.
Frank looked through the papers, at first looking puzzled, then a little angry, then shaking his head.
Seems like you have me bang to rights.
Doesn’t it?
I’d say so.
What’s the point, Frank?
I don’t know.
I mean, none of us is making any money, I can’t ever imagine doing that, I mean, what’s the point? Even if nobody else knows, you know it isn’t yours.
What can I say, Simon?
How can you explain it? It’s just cheating, isn’t it?
Well, I can explain it and I can’t.
I’m waiting.
It’s influence, isn’t it? I’ve read a lot of poems over the years and so the influence just seeps through. Look close enough and you’ll probably find lines from Ginsberg and Lorca in there too. There’s nothing new anymore.
Oh, come on Frank, the poems that I put in Magpie Court are just rip offs.
I don’t know, must just have been the influence.
Cheating.
Intertextuality.
What?
The academics call it intertextuality. If I’m being honest, I sometimes use poems for their structure, and I might take some phrases here and there. I’ve been doing it for years, lad. Call it a reworking, poetic versioning, whatever you like.
I feel a right mug.
It’s influence, not plagiarism. Folk singers have done it for centuries. You borrow bits here and there. And it’s only poetry for Christ’s sake, there’s only about twenty people read it in the country anyway.
This Jeremy’s coming after you, Frank. They call him the poetry detective.
Poetry detective? Ridiculous.
Seems like he’s on a bit of a crusade.
It will pass over, lad, don’t worry.
When the article came out, the poetry world, small as it is, was in uproar. A pious bunch at the best of times, the poets, and the university poets in particular, took this as an opportunity to stick the boot in while establishing their own holier than thou credentials. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone that Magpie Court only sold about thirty copies an issue, there was no perspective. It was outright condemnation.
It emerged that Frank had once received a grant from the Arts Council on the back of his published output, at least half of which now seemed dubious in origin. He’d also done a Master’s degree in Creative Writing, and his thesis had been available in the library, but now the university had removed it. There were howls of anger about the Arts Council grant, which people said he would have to pay back. He had been booked to read at a number of places, including a couple of festivals, and these invitations were all withdrawn to a murmured chorus of approval.
It was funny, when Simon looked through some of his own published poems, he saw among them a clear rip off of some Bob Dylan lyrics, and he really couldn’t be sure if this had been done deliberately. The more he thought about it the more he had to admit he had just nicked those two lines from a Dylan song. It seemed only a matter of time before Jeremy was on to him too.
It seemed that this Jeremy spent all his time searching for examples of plagiarism in poetry, and there were more newspaper articles. Increasingly, the articles began to be about Jeremy, rather than the plagiarism issue. He was interviewed at home, spoke about the collapse of his marriage. It seemed maybe that this plagiarism thing had given him something to focus on outside that collapse. Perhaps he’d done something wrong within the marriage and now he was trying to rectify the karma. He was relentless, and poet after poet was exposed, and the writers of the original poems were almost always absolutely outraged. One said he felt violated.
Simon met up with Frank again. Frank was at a low ebb and Simon thought a couple of pints would help the mood.
How are things, Frank?
Bad times, Simon.
I’m sure it will all wash over soon.
It won’t, believe me.
They do seem to be focusing on you more than anyone else.
I wonder why?
What do you mean?
I don’t want to play the race card.
I’m not following.
Whitey is outraged.
Eh?
I’m the only black poet involved in this scandal, but the focus is on me, is still on me. They aren’t saying anyone else needs to pay their grant back.
That’s not going to happen, Frank.
You know I’ve had death threats, hate mail. I don’t know how they know my address but I’ve had poison pen letters. They put my picture in the papers and they always refer to me as ‘black poet’ Frank Campbell, what’s that about?
Who are these death threats from?
Obviously they never put their names.
This is all getting ridiculous, Frank.
It is what it is.
Well, I will still publish you, just don’t embarrass me.
I’m grateful to you, Simon.
Everyone makes mistakes, everyone deserves a second chance. This isn’t fucking Salem.
Thank you, Simon. I just hope the council see it that way.
You’ll be fine.
Let’s hope so.
Simon had put together some short stories influenced by Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, and a guy he’d published in the first couple of issues of Magpie Court emailed and said that a publisher he knew was looking for short story collections, and if Simon emailed him the stories, he would forward them on. It was a curious thing, Simon had not started the magazine to curry favour, but found that by publishing people’s work he made allies. The downside was that every time he had a pint with one of these people it would always get back to the magazine and the poems or stories they had sent to Simon. He wondered if they would still be around when the magazine ended.
As for the people whose work he rejected for the magazine, well, their hatred was palpable. He’d see them out and about and they’d just ignore him. Sometimes Magpie Court would get slagged off in other magazines.
It was interesting though, seeing the submissions process from the other side. Some people would send poems and Simon just didn’t like their style and never would, and these people kept on sending more and more, week after week, in the hope of wearing him down. But the more they sent the less likely he was to publish them. Eventually he told this one guy to come back in a year and received a vitriolic response along the lines of Magpie Court being a crap magazine in which Simon only published his friends and that Simon himself was a joke of a human being who was going to get cancer.
Simon and Frank met up again for a pint.
Hi Frank, how’s it going?
We keep on keeping on.
Yeah, what can I get you?
I’ll have a Guinness.
Guinness? Okay I’ll join you.
When Simon got back with the drinks, Frank was still taking off more layers. He must have had about four coats on and yet never wore a hat.
I’m still not getting any readings, he said.
I was going to ask you about that.
That poetry detective has killed me.
I’m sad to hear that, pal.
It’s racism.
How is it racism? I publish you, don’t I?
You can’t understand.
Why can’t I?
Because you’re white.
I have loads of black friends.
Of course you do.
Half of my writing heroes are black.
I’m not talking about you, I’m not talking personally about you, it’s not about you. It’s whiteness.
What?
Whiteness. Ask them at the uni about it. You can’t understand how I feel because you are white. You are privileged.
Privileged? How the hell am I privileged?
Not you personally.
I haven’t got a pot to piss in. How can I be privileged?
I’m not going to explain it to you.
Why not, I’d like to know how the hell I’m privileged.
Google it. I’m not explaining it to you.
How do you expect me to learn?
You learn for yourself.
Why don’t you tell me?
I’ve spent my whole life trying to explain it. Now I put it in my poems.
Yeah right.
What’s that supposed to mean?
When you put it in a poem you’ve ripped off from someone else, you mean.
That’s out of order, Simon.
You’re out of order.
Fuck you, Simon, said Frank, before putting his coats back on.
Don’t be daft, Frank.
I’m going, he said, finishing off the Guinness.
Wear a hat, Frank.
What?
Wear a hat.
Oh fuck off, Simon.
For the next issue of Magpie Court, Simon was planning to include three poems by Frank, and he was also working on an editorial in defence of Frank and condemning the witch hunts that were going on. Simon had googled ‘whiteness’ and started to get his head around what Frank had said about privilege.
There was some good stuff coming in the new issue. There was a series of flash fictions by this American writer from Florida and Simon hadn’t even heard of flash fiction. It seemed they were stories of less than a thousand words. The likes of Kafka and Hemingway had written them years ago but ‘flash’ was a new term for them, a marketing gimmick that seemed to be working. There was some Oulipo cobblers, a bunch of confessional poems set in the city from a locally famous woman who had once been homeless, a short story sent in from a bloke in Canada, some long poems by a poet from South Africa, and one or two apprentice pieces by local writers Simon wanted to give first publication to. That was the biggest buzz, publishing people for the first time. He couldn’t make head or tail of the Oulipo stuff, but he was adamant about not just publishing stuff he liked. If it seemed good, then he was happy to publish it. And if he didn’t want to publish it, he found that ‘not quite right for the magazine’ was the kindest way to phrase rejection.
When Frank turned up in the pub, Simon got him a Guinness. Then he fished into his rucksack and showed Frank the rough copy of the next issue, asked Frank to read through his poems and check for typos.
How have you been, Frank?
I’m totally skint, and lost my job at the council, but apart from that, fine.
Oh shit, I never realized.
Whole bunch of redundancies.
Sorry to hear it, Frank.
They’ve been threatening it for years. Working for the council is not what it was.
Shit.
And it happened at the worst time.
How do you mean?
Well I’ve lost all my gigs haven’t I?
Of course, yeah. I’m sorry, Frank.
I don’t blame you, Simon, you’re okay. It’s these other pious bastards. Never made a mistake in their lives. Sod them. Glass houses and all that.
What do you mean, Frank?
I mean if I ever meet that poetry detective, I’m going to tell him to get a life.
He was on something the other day, going on about it again.
You know what that is Simon? You know what it is, and I hadn’t heard this phrase before, but it’s what they call ‘virtue signalling.’
How do you mean?
Well it’s like he’s saying, look at me, I’m doing all this research off my own back just to find out if someone somewhere has used a bit of someone’s else’s poem. What a great guy I am.
Oh right.
People like that have got dark secrets, man.
I’d not thought of it like that. I thought maybe he just wants to be liked.
Nobody does nothing for nothing in this world. That poetry detective is either trying to make up for something or trying to get something out of it in the future.
I know but you did copy someone else’s poem, Frank.
It’s like I killed someone!
Nobody’s saying that.
That’s how it feels, Simon. And I might as well have killed someone, to be honest. I’ve lost all my gigs and my regular job. Can’t get a gig for toffee.
I know but losing your council job has nothing to do with the plagiarism thing though.
How do you know, Simon? How do you know that the poetry detective hasn’t been on to the council? Or that someone at the council saw something online? They’ve always hated that I’m a poet, Simon, on top of being black. I should never have told anyone at the council because they throw it back in your face any chance you get. I’m telling you, wherever you work, never tell them you’re a writer.
I don’t.
Very wise.
So what you going to do for work?
I’m signing on, aren’t I?
Right.
I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again, they’ve had plenty of tax out of me over the years. Never thought I’d be back here.
Sorry, Frank.
I still reckon I’ve give them more tax than they’ve give me.
Probably. Anyway you having another Guinness, Frank?
Yes please, lad. Might as well.
Jeremy won a big poetry award for his new collection Sounds, Familiar. He got a large cash prize and lots of media coverage, and when Simon saw this Jeremy on breakfast TV he couldn’t help thinking of Frank.
It hadn’t made the national news that Frank was last seen walking towards the river, but they did bring up the poetry detective stuff.
So tell us about the title then, Jeremy, one of the presenters said, holding the book up to the camera. It’s hard not to connect that with your sleuthing work as the poetry detective. Actually, we should just explain to our viewers, for those who don’t know, that Jeremy, it’s fair to say, got a bit of a name of himself, became known as the poetry detective. Do you want to say a bit more about that?
Well, basically I was exposing people as plagiarists.
Can you say a little more?
Yes, I can. It is a sad reality in the poetry world that sometimes people cheat, and it came to my attention that the work of a poet I once appeared alongside in a magazine and actually once vouched for in a competition, so that he won a not insubstantial amount of money, he had actually plagiarized a lot of his work from poets in other countries, in this particular case, Australia.
I find this fascinating, I have to say.
Well, in a way it is, but in others it is defaming the name of poetry, undermining the integrity of poetry.
But I suppose it’s like, well, some people might say, who’s going to know?
Well precisely, it’s just that I discovered I had a particular gift for it, not sure why. Just the way my brain works. I can remember words, phrases, patterns of words and phrases, patterns of lines. It comes quite easy for me and so it is not difficult for me to see this kind of thing when it occurs.
