More on "Misrepresented Poetry"

Poetry Foundation has a post up about what they are calling the "pirated poetry anthology."

Click here to view the post and read the comments

I am quite disturbed to come to the conclusion that so many poets are being taken advantage of by having their name associated with something they did not give permission for and then, for some, they claim the poem linked to their name is not even their poem.

This is a real shame to see something like this go on. From what I've read online, this is basically what happened:

Someone got the bright idea to use a computer program to write 4000 poems and then attributed them to popular poets online and to other notables, including e.e. cummings, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan.

They posted the project and drew the wrath of many poets who didn't appreciate their name being associated with such a project. If you ask me it was the height of rudeness to do what this person did, and caused unneccasary upset in the poetry community. You can not just hijack someone's name and think that's cool. Its not.

I hope to never see something as distastful as this go on again. In the poetry blogosphere we need to help and uplift each other, not drag each other down.

Hopefully all our poets are doing well today. I'm very thankful that PWB is not the kind of site that would foster the mean spirited vibe that produced that project.