Thirteen Thoughts on Plagiarism

(with apologies, pleadingly offered, to Wallace Stevens)

I
In eight pages of writing,
The only original thing
Was the name of the student.

II
I was really disappointed:
Like the students
Will be when they get their grades.

III
Rushing to meet deadlines, students copy:
A small sacrifice when playing the academic game.

IV
An assignment and effort
Are one.
The assignment and effort and a student
Should be one.

V
I do not know which more to hate:
The desperation of silly excuses
Or intellectual deceit,
The student despairing
Or its result.

VI
Red filled the long margins
With frustrated scrawls.
The student's unacknowledged
Borrowings shadowed the page.
My mood,
Darkened by these shadows,
Tracked unsolvable riddles.

VII
O Gate-keeping White Men
Why do you insist on straight 'A's
Before allowing students the
Careers of a careered society,
Tempting them to cheat?

VIII
I respect decent attempts and
When I see them, I richly reward;
But I know, too,
That students get others
To write papers for them.

IX
When a student sniffles in my sight,
Then screams "Unfair!"
The irony is palpable.

X
What is it called when students
Try to turn in work previously turned in?
My attempts at generosity
Are confounded by stupidity.

XI
"I sent it over the internet!
Last Saturday - you haven't received it?"
Once, e-mail actually worked.
Now, magic filters surely do
Detect and erase assignments
Sent by students!

XII
The semester has ended.
Some students must have failed.

XIII
With citations, it's called "Research".
With poetry it's called "Parody".
And it's all entirely inconsequential
For the student who
Just wants that damn degree.

Spicing the Grail

Here's a project that I've been working on. It's supposed to be the beginnings of a hypertext edition of a poem. The poem is by Jack Spicer. Jack Spicer was a real person. Jack Spicer was a poet. He wrote many influential poems. He was associated with the San Francisco Renaissance. He believed that poetry is dictated. He took dictation from Martians.

The poem is called "The Holy Grail". Spicer wrote it from 1961 to 1962. It was published in 1964. First editions are rare. There is a "pirate" edition in the Columbia Rare Manuscript Library. How does a "pirated" edition find its way into the Rare Book collection of a venerable academic institution? The word "venerable" reminds me of The Name of the Rose. It reminds me of "Venerable Jorge". Another pirated edition, another work.

I am only slightly embarrassed that my interest in this coincides with Tom Hanks and bad hair. But there are many grails. It is a poem in seven "books". Each book has seven parts. Spicer called this a "serial" poem.

The point of this edition are the annotations. There are many references in the poem to Arthurian legend. I tried to track down these references. I annotate non-traditionally. I used a code that enables "one-to-many" links. It is quite novel. Suat, a frequent tagger on right, helped with making the code work properly. Many thanks, Suat.

At this point, only the first two "books" are annotated. There is much to be done. But you can read through the whole poem if you like. The best browser to use to view these pages is Firefox. They work fine with Netscape as well. You will run into problems if you use Internet Explorer.

Spicing the Grail

Man Gave Names to All the Animals

As the school term winds down here and a flurry of final papers that need to be graded descends upon me, I've noticed that the most creative bit of writing that I'll ever see from my students doesn't really occur in the essay proper. Instead, it's tucked away, in the top left-hand corner of every paper, right after the heading "Instructor: ..."

I've been named a good many things in these past two years. The obvious mispellings still occur even after I've been with a class for the entire semester. The most common are the relatively basic additions or changes that remind the teacher that he's got his own name spelt wrongly and that there is a better way to spell it. To these students, I'm either "Gari Lim" or "Garry Lim", depending on their dislike for "y"s or penchant for "r"s. Then, there are the students who refuse to believe that my name is indeed a two-syllable word and insist on transforming it into a comment on my personality or outlook on life. To them, I'm "Gray Lim". Others decide that I'm really quite a jolly chap. Either that or they insist taking our class discussions about sexual identity one step further by calling my declared heterosexuality into question and labelling me "Gay Lim". Just last week, one student insisted that "Gary" was much too common for her tastes and opted for a version that put me right in the middle of the 18th century, parasols and a Jane Austen novel: "Garrick Lim".

My last name has come under assault as well. Some students, probably after a nasty case of food poisoning in Chinatown or an unpleasant run-in with Canal street touts, rather not have a Chinese teacher teach them English. To them, I'm Korean and "Gary Kim". The most subtle substitution so far has been a powerful indictment of the meaningless and arbitrary conventions with which we phoneticize Mandarin names with the latin alphabet: "Gary Lym".

And today, I received a paper that just took the cake. I haven't really worked out what this student was thinking, but hey, I'm open to suggestions:

On Power

If power lacke on any syde on that syde is no power, but no power is wretchydnesse. For al be it so the power of emperours or kynges or els of their realmes (whiche is the power of the prince) stretchen wyde and brode, yet besydes is ther mokel folke of whiche he hath no commaundement ne lordshyppe; and there as lacketh his power his nonpower entreth, whereunder springeth that maketh hem wretches. No power is wretchydnesse and nothing els. But in this maner hath kynges more porcion of wretchydnesse than of power. Trewly, suche powers ben unmighty, for ever they ben in drede howe thilke power from lesyng may be keped of sorow; so drede sorily prickes ever in their hertes: litel is the power whiche careth and ferdeth it selfe to mayntayne. Unmighty is that wretchydnesse whiche is entred by the ferdful wenynge of the wretche himselfe, and knot ymaked by wretchydnesse is betwene wretches; and wretches al thyng bewaylen. Wherfore the knot shulde be bewayled, and there is no suche parfyte blysse that we supposed at the gynnyng. Ergo, power in nothyng shulde cause suche knottes. Wretchydnesse is a kyndely propertie in suche power as by way of drede whiche they mowe not eschewe ne by no way lyve in sykernesse. For thou woste wel," quod she, "he is nought mighty that wolde done that he may not done ne perfourme."

-- Thomas Usk, The Testament of Love Book 2 Chapter VII

Promptly ...

Promptly at nine, start the section

He tried to steal my pen
Lehman? My High school
Was up in the Bronx
"Walton High?"

Thick stubby nails chewed through
I went to Bronx Science
"Bronx Science?!"
Yeah ... Bronx Science

With woolly beard overflowing face
There's a story about that
I was good at
Math still am

"NYC. 2005 Samuel R. Delany"
Took the special exams
And got in -- Math
I'm good at not Science

"And the name's ... Gary?"
After four years
I was still a
Sophomore

"And Carnivals ... I'll read some"
Wasn't structured enough
Skipped out too
Many classes

"Is Atlantis ... that and Of Plagues ..."
So I dropped out took
The GED
And had a baby

"My only experimental work ..."
I'm going to major in
Accounting -- I'm
Good at Math