copyright notice
Copyright © 2003 Dylan Harris.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this work under the terms of the General Arts Licence, Version 0.2, with back cover texts being "Originally published by Potato Press.". A copy of the Licence is included in the section entitled "General Arts Licence".
contents
introduction ii
why copyleft my poetry ii
Acknowledgements iii
... And Then I'll Break The Sea 1
bathroom spider 1
A Bicycle Criticises Concorde For Not Observing Butterflies 1
At Buckfast Abbey 1
chase chase 2
China Poem 2
Damage 2
An Eighteenth Century Beam Engine 2
Elsewhen 2
Epigrams 3
On Science 3
On Islam 3
On Al-Qaida 3
America & Israel 3
Fear In Flight, God (a poem in two forms) 3
Fugues 4
gentle 4
ghost 4
green 4
harvest 5
A Horrible Day 5
On Hunting With Hounds 5
I Don't Visit My Mother's Grave 5
in cynic adverati 6
Intruder Alert 6
It's My Hands 6
The Joy Of Tax 6
Just Protectionism? 6
later 6
Little Willie 6
London, 2K0 7
... a much for we ... 7
My Difficulty With Melancholy 7
Neil Armstrong Is My Explorer Of The Millennium 7
New Year's Eves 7
old man Keats 7
The Poet Illustrates His Ability To Concoct A Poem Spontaneously 8
i'd prefer to remember summer 8
Regrow 8
Manifesto 8
Father 8
Son 8
Program 8
remembering the slits 9
Scorpion 9
scratby 9
Sharp 9
shrines 10
A Simple Fantasy 10
sod the world 10
Software Engineering 10
Sweet And Stupid 11
There's Money in Mechanics 11
the three monks 11
Thoughts On Odes To Nightingales 11
Tobacco's Such A Treat 12
Underneath The Loch 12
Water 13
The Anger Of Water 13
Three Flawed 13
Viaduct 13
The Mere Of Ice 13
We, The Fell 14
What Do Lemmings Eat? 14
when the trains first came 14
General Arts Licence 16
introduction
Welcome to "push pop the lingo lads", one of four small potato press collections I'm preparing.
The purpose of these collections is to raise the funds for a drink in the pub after I've given a reading. If I'm really lucky, I'll may have enough left over to subscribe to a poetry magazine.
This collection, and "ranting poesie", represent my most recent poetry. I have consciously attempted to find new ways of expression. Although poems following different rules are more difficult to read on the page, they still sound perfectly intelligible to my ear. See what you think.
Be warned: I've found the hard way I'm completely hopeless at selecting my own poetry. There are poems that I consider awful that have been published. I've gone back to dreadful poems after ten years and realised 'hang on a sec'. There are poems I consider excellent that no-one else likes. So, apart from the outrageous drivel, I've kept nothing from these collections. That's half the reason they're so cheap.
My website is dylanharris.org. You'll find versions of these poems there. But there is a fundamental advantage to buying a copy of the poems in this booklet rather than browsing online: I get a pint out of you. Thank you!
why copyleft my poetry
Copyleft is, if you like, guerilla marketing. If something is copylefted, it can be freely copied, modified and distributed, commercially or non-commercially. This freedom is governed by a licence, designed to ensure this freedom is not abused.
Copyleft does not exist to be guerilla marketing. It was created to defend principles of freedom, as the introduction to the Licence suggests, in particular freedom of thought and action against abusive restrictions by the owners of intellectual property rights and patents. What if a motor car manufacturer stated that you are not permitted to maintain your car, you have to use their highly expensive services? What if the car failed after five miles and you were barred from opening the bonnet to reconnect the battery? That's how a lot of the software industry works, and that's why the hacker's hacker (a word given negative connotations by those scared of freedom), Richard Stallman, started the Free Software Foundation. For further information, visit the FSF website at www.fsf.org, or read Sam Williams's copylefted biography of Richard Stallman, "Free As In Freedom", O'Reilly, ISBN 0-596-00287-4.
Certain reasons for copyleft do not apply to a collection of poetry. Where, in a poem, is the oil that I can charge you for changing? No, my reasons to copyleft my poetry are very different. In my collection 'Ranting Poesie' is a poem entitled, would you believe, 'Copyleft' (which can also be found on my website).
If a poetry collection is copyleft; anyone can copy and distribute it as they wish, subject to the licence. If the poetry is copied, I neither pay nor receive a penny. If a critical mass is achieved, copyleft material can conquer the world. In the computer world, the copyleft operating system Linux is global and challenging even Microsoft Windows; which is incredible when you consider it began as a hobby project of Linux Torvelds, a Finnish student. Copyleft can be very powerful.
Poetry does not make much money; even the greatest poets often need additional income. William Wordsworth was a tax collector, Ted Hughes was a farmer, and many living poets, such as Benjamin Zephaniah, lecture in poetry at universities. One does not become a poet to become rich.
Poetry is rarely a source of instant success. Only certain well established poets are generally known to poetry readers. Just a few poets are known to the general population. Such general awareness usually follows years of hard poetic graft and sculpted art. Poetry is---usually---a long game.
I do have ambition; I do like people knowing about and commenting on my poetry. It's a reward for all that creative investment, if you like. I want people to hear, read and enjoy my work. That won't happen if they don't know about it.
So I need good distribution. I can't afford it myself, so I have to depend on publishers. Most poetry publishing houses are merely national, if that; all disappointingly parochial. Worse, though eminently sensible from their perspective, is that I'm an unknown uncollected poet; I would be a seriously risky investment. I'm not confident about traditional distribution.
I'm interested in the long game. I'd like to get my name and poetry known. I hope easily available modern English poetry, which can be copied, distributed, and modified, will be of interest in education. If I'm right, advanced students of English may see my work, and hopefully a few of them will like it and want more.
There are charitable reasons why copylefting poetry might be a good thing. A volume costs less to produce and distribute; there are no royalties. It becomes extremely low cost if distributed electronically. All the legal information is included in the volume, so even the most fastidious need not waste time and effort checking permissions. This makes it cheaper to put such poetry into schools and colleges, where it can assist advanced students to explore modern English literature---there's even a clause in the licence requesting copies from to be donated to schools. There are no doubt better examples of modern English poetry out there, but I believe something---even my something---is better than nothing.
I'd always intended to copyleft my work, so I had no a problem with publishing it online at my website (dylanharris.org). Even if I killed the site today, the Internet Archive Internet Archive (web.archive.org) will have copies of it, and would continue to make these copies available without successful and seriously expensive legal action. Anyone with net access can see my poetry anyway without paying me for it. Publishing a copyleft collection isn't really a change.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors of Black Rose, Cambridge Poetry Newsletter, Envoi, Inclement, Orbis and Subverse for accepting some of these poems, Jenni Tucker and Linda Gamlin for CB1, and Tom Sheerin and Bernard Walker for Cambridge Poets.
The Slits were an all-girl punk band. If you can, go find a 12" copy of their single "Typical Girls".
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