I’ve been thinking about these ten poems I’ve written beginning with a line by W.S. Graham. I’ll have to read through them and decide what to do with them. Some may be fine as they are, some may need revised or cut, some may need to be thrown away.
But what are the ethics surrounding that first line? Say I decided to cut the W.S. Graham first line in a poem and add in a first line of my own – would it then be ethically wrong to present it as purely my own poem, considering it was inspired by a line from another poet? Or does the fact that all the lines left in the poem are my own mean that what originally inspired it becomes irrelevant?
Of course, I might keep one or two of them as they are and acknowledge that they begin with a W.S. Graham line. One or two is fine, but ten is a bit much, I think…
