Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Stolen

 





Picasso once said:


"Good artists copy, great artists steal."


Well, people said he said that. But he didn't. It all probably comes down to T.S. Eliot saying "Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal." And all the nonsense followed from there. Misattributions, reworkings, and a distorted entry into the cultural lexicon.

How do I know all this? I stole it from an article I read on the Internet. I hope Ian Shank was right about all this. But if one can't trust Ian Shank who can one trust?

Who, you ask, is Ian Shank?


Mr. Ian Shank

a poem


Mr. Ian Shank

Strode across the hills and broke them,

Rode across the hills and broke them--

The barren New England hills--

Riding to hounds

Over the cow-pasture


Mr. Ian Shank smoked

And danced all the modern dances;

And his aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,

But they knew that it was modern.


Upon the glazen shelves kept watch

Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,

The army of unalterable law.



Good artists copy, great artist steal, but some of us, unnoticed, just finally stepped outside of the Pantheon,

and under so few eyes, start to feel the curious freedom of doing anything, absolutely anything.





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