All's Well That Ends Well

Two weeks ago, under the headline “Steal This Poem,” New England Museletter correspondent Victor Infante reported on poet Taylor Mali, New York Times journalist and commencement speaker Thomas L. Friedman, and “the poem that wouldn't sit still.” Now the odd story of how Friedman appropriated a bowdlerized version of Mali's poem without attribution has come to a more or less quiet conclusion, but we cannot help but ponder how the Internet dilutes authorship, and how easy it is to lose control of one's poems.