https://twitter.com/search?q=ailey%20o%27toole&src=tyah
https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/plagiarism-drama-surrounds-pushcart-nominated-poet.html
― j., Monday, 3 December 2018 00:57 (five years ago) link
hope someone somewhere out there is available to stay on suicide watch for this unfortunate case
― j., Monday, 3 December 2018 00:59 (five years ago) link
Plagiarism is the dumbest shit
― I have measured out my life in coffee shop loyalty cards (silby), Monday, 3 December 2018 01:06 (five years ago) link
― jmm, Monday, 3 December 2018 04:34 (five years ago) link
she picked the wrong poet to plagiarize. rachel mckibben is not being philosophical about it.
"...In paraphrasing you, I had hoped to put our poems into conversation with each other and go on to explore new terrain opened up for me by your work. I am deeply ashamed of the mistake I made and hope you can accept my sincerest apologies." Bitch, I DON'T.— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 05:39 (five years ago) link
I need to come back to this, because that tattoo of hers is more than just a line. I was the youngest patient in the US to get braces back in the 80s. My orthodontist was stunned that I'd lost all my baby teeth. I was seven.— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018
My dad helped me lose those teeth, Ailey. Here's a line I never put in a poem: the tooth fairy doesn't come for teeth knocked down your throat. You can have that one.— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018
jesus christ
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 05:41 (five years ago) link
Rachel McKibbens has a point. Did Ailey O'Toole ever contact her and ask her permission to "put our poems into conversation with each other and go on to explore new terrain opened up for me by your work"? Given Rachel's response, I'd say the chances are nil.
Plagiarism is the dumbest shit.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 3 December 2018 05:44 (five years ago) link
yeah, i am not saying mckibbens is wrong to be angry. i am just saying, whoa, she is angry.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 05:47 (five years ago) link
Excusing a white person's criminal behavior because you assume they have mental illness IS PART OF WHITE SUPREMACY. Check yourselves. #AileyOToole #RachelMcKibbens #PushcartPrize #Poetry— Voight-Kampff Test (@enjen99) December 2, 2018
can't help but feel a bit worried for a (seemingly very young person) getting the brunt of these kinds of twitter broadsides. again, not saying the analysis is wrong, just... eesh
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 05:49 (five years ago) link
I myself have had my style co-opted by other students in workshops. This is not flattery — this is theft. Not nearly as egregious as spitting back words of another poet. Plagiarisers are not welcome in the writing community. #AileyOToole— Rachael Walker (@rwalkerwrites) December 3, 2018
this take however is pretty fucking dumb
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 05:52 (five years ago) link
ppl can't tell if you embed tweets here can they
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 05:58 (five years ago) link
This is not flattery — this is theft.
urrggh. She thinks she can claim all property rights to a style?! Uh, nope. No one ever did before.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 3 December 2018 06:04 (five years ago) link
yeah. i think this kind of mistake is inevitable given the strident anti-plagiarism stance people were taking on twitter, in which true poetry was an expression of the poet's authentic voice and anything short of that is stealing. i agree that people shouldn't lift lines from other poets, but i also think all art emerges from a tradition and it's naive to imagine that any poet arrived at their voice all alone, rather than via dialogue with other poets. we live in a society and all that
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 06:10 (five years ago) link
I think there's a lot of space between that and biting poems from a book published in 2017
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Monday, 3 December 2018 06:30 (five years ago) link
exactly
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 06:31 (five years ago) link
The idea that a real poet finds some kind of perfectly individual voice is one of those myths that both critics and artists love to fetishize. The greatest poets are always derivative to some degree and most achieve their individual distinction mostly upon stylistic nuances and personal themes and imagery. Non-greatest poets do exactly the same, except not as successfully.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 3 December 2018 06:34 (five years ago) link
yeah, you have to fight to be original. not everyone gets there.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 06:35 (five years ago) link
We at @GhostCityPress will not tolerate plagiarism. It’s like removing the flesh & bones from an artist. It’s stealing their voice. It’s evil. In light of recent events, we have taken down Ailey O'Toole’s work. Someone’s voice is to be celebrated, not taken away from them.— Justin Karcher (@justin_karcher) December 1, 2018
should be asleep but i am reading more tweets about this. what does ilx think of this kind of reaction? i think it's over the top and so much response has been in this vein. again--plagiariam is bad and certainly a kind of violation--but is evil really a good word to use for someone who isn't donald trump?
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 06:38 (five years ago) link
the poetry world is exceedingly small and difficult to become established within, so that the idea of anyone occupying some unmerited sliver of publishing space in that crowded and miniscule world utterly infuriates the coterie of poets who've managed to carve out a tiny bit of standing room in that micro-universe.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 3 December 2018 06:44 (five years ago) link
perhaps the fact that these people are involved in 'the lit world' does not necessarily mean that they have good judgment in other, or perhaps any, respects
― j., Monday, 3 December 2018 06:46 (five years ago) link
yeah i guess. i just think the absolutism is idiotic.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 06:49 (five years ago) link
plagiarism is a bad idea and very stupid but yeah it does not rate very highly on the "evil" scale. it's not really even "criminal behavior" in the usual sense of the word; you could lose your job or a book contract for doing it, but you're probably not going to jail. (good thing too, or bob dylan would already be there.)
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 December 2018 06:53 (five years ago) link
it seems like part of a broader trend toward flagrant self-righteousness.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 06:58 (five years ago) link
and lack of self awareness.
like did that poet above, who complained about people biting her style in her poetry classes, never try on the style of other poets in the process of finding her own voice? is she an actual god capable of ex nihilo creation?
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:01 (five years ago) link
"I myself have had my style co-opted by other students in workshops."
i bet this person is a real blast to hang out with
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 3 December 2018 07:05 (five years ago) link
snowflakes on a wet black bough
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:11 (five years ago) link
imago, calling out sanctimoniousness among twitter users is my thing. back the fuck off.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:14 (five years ago) link
lollll
― j., Monday, 3 December 2018 07:14 (five years ago) link
Uh it's one thing to steal a line or two from another poet/m, but she pretty much plagiarized the entire thing:
pic.twitter.com/5W10pIffMD— Brenna Twohy (@brennatwohy) December 1, 2018
― Roz, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:21 (five years ago) link
click through to thread.
― Roz, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:23 (five years ago) link
no, for sure, i'm not saying what she did wasn't bad. it's totally cool for her work to get pulled from all these poetry sites and stuff. i just think the language about her being evil and removing flesh and bones from artists was way over the top and kind of sadistic.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:26 (five years ago) link
it's the glee in the persecution that bothers me. and since it's a group phenomenon it disturbs me more than the existence of one plagiarizer.
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:28 (five years ago) link
I'm fine with the (apparently quite witty) vitriol of the plagiarised poets
The problem is other people chipping in, having their say
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:36 (five years ago) link
and as ever, this is the real menace
It's so fucking arrogant and selfish. I'm so sorry, Brenna. xo— Jamie Caroline (@JamesCaroline) December 1, 2018
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:39 (five years ago) link
anyway treesh im so sorry u had to go thru this, anything u need just ask x
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:40 (five years ago) link
anyone who co-opts the style of someone who says ‘i myself’ in a tweet is a fool
― estela, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:41 (five years ago) link
yeah, though I find twitter mobs in general tend to be over the top and sadistic. plenty of women get called worse, and that's even without doing anything wrong.
xposts lol imago
― Roz, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:42 (five years ago) link
Also, when someone plagiarises that much and that pathologically....idk, while they deserve some measure of contempt maybe they're the ones who on some level need the u alright huns - clearly not in a good place if that's what's being resorted to
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:43 (five years ago) link
agree with all those points
― Trϵϵship, Monday, 3 December 2018 07:56 (five years ago) link
so yeah i sampled your poem you were using it wrong
― esby, Monday, 3 December 2018 08:44 (five years ago) link
This is incredible, like a student trying to evade plagiarism checkers with a thesaurus:
"Your original stanza reads, "Hell-spangled girl / spitting teeth into the sink, / I'd trace the broken / landscape of my body / & find God / within myself." . . .— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018
"...My paraphrased stanza read "Ramshackle / girl spitting teeth / in the sink. I trace the / foreign topography of / my body, find God / in my skin." Unfortunately, over time, the origin of the stanza slipped my mind and in compiling my manuscript and submitting the poem"— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) December 1, 2018
― louise ck (milo z), Monday, 3 December 2018 08:49 (five years ago) link
i guess the most shocking aspect of this is poets responding to it with colourful rhetoric and hyperbole
― biliares now living will never buey (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 December 2018 08:54 (five years ago) link
mckibbens tweetstorm is p righteous tbf
o'toole def comes off as an insecure noun (definition supplied elsewhere) - 'I DID THE THING' etc. dismal but also aware of it. probably needs help rn but probably isn't getting any. not sure why j. made that suicide quip above as she's probably dissociating hardcore atm, idk. treat young people with kindness when they fuck up
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 09:21 (five years ago) link
Accusations of plagiarism provide one of the few opportunities to broach the subject of poetry in public discourse, no doubt because they don't require you to read any actual poetry.
― pomenitul, Monday, 3 December 2018 09:21 (five years ago) link
will obviously never now be a poet though and needs to consider alternatives when this has all settled down
wonder which of the london scene i could plagiarise to most outrageous effect lol
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 09:22 (five years ago) link
as always
this is only valuable to the extent that the terrible ppl involved visibly suffer for my edification
― puppy bash (darraghmac), Monday, 3 December 2018 10:53 (five years ago) link
maybe I'll plagiarise deems and cause ilx drama
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 10:56 (five years ago) link
you havent the stuff tbph
― puppy bash (darraghmac), Monday, 3 December 2018 10:57 (five years ago) link
but you do, so
― imago, Monday, 3 December 2018 11:05 (five years ago) link
i just think the language about her being evil and removing flesh and bones from artists was way over the top and kind of sadistic.
lol poets in waxing poetic shocker
― Plinka Trinka Banga Tink (Eliza D.), Monday, 3 December 2018 14:13 (five years ago) link