Young Writers Society

I recently read some poetry that I really enjoyed. I loved the style and use of rhythm. I was inspired, and I scratched out some poems exploring that style and form (for me only). I do believe that art progresses by our reactions to other artists, and building upon something else, being inspired by the work of our peers.

However, if I were to publish those poems, would they be too close to the work I had read? And would the author have the right to tell me that I was stealing their own form of personal expression?

How close is too close?

It depends, unfortunately. Note: I am not a lawyer. I am just somebody who keeps an eye on laws.

First thing first: is the work public domain? Certain pieces legally cannot be plagiarized because they don't belong to anyone in particular. If you've taken from a public domain work then you won't be accused of plagiarism (this is why certain characters crop up all the time in a million adaptations: you can't be sued for using them).

Next up: Did you lift any significant chunks directly from the source text? If you have copied things, that's a pretty easy plagiarism case, because you can look between the two and see that yes one was copied. Short phrases, however, can't be copyrighted.

My instinct wants to include something about how if your poem is basically unrecognizable as "yours", it's so heavily inspired by the source, then that's too much, but that could be the traditional artist in me talking (in which heavily referenced work is plagiarism and you need to have your own twist on it to be original).

If the work is identifiable as yours and has nothing directly lifted from the source, you'll probably be okay.

in other areas the legal definitions of intellectual property theft are easier to define, but in literacy you pretty much have to steal a persons notebook in order for it to count as such.

There's still bad practice though, and that leads to a bad reputation.

Inspiration comes from everywhere. I would say that taking a piece of someone else's work and experimenting with it is okay, like you said that's part of the process of art. Unless you're taking their work and translating it into your own words you're fine.

One thing to be careful of is not to settle with anything you come up with too soon after you've read those poems. Unintentional plagiarism can happen when you read something briefly, put it down, and write it in your own words without even realising that you're using the same phrases and ideas. As long as you're confident that you're using the structure as inspiration and not simply rewriting the poem then it's all good.