ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Mali, Friedman and the poem that wouldn’t sit still
So the odd story of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman’s appropriation of a sanitized, unattributed version of Taylor Mali’s poem “What Teachers Make” has come to a more or less quiet conclusion. Friedman, who read a watered-down version of the poem at Yale’s commencement ceremony, confirmed to Mali that “his wife got one of the sanitized versions of the poem that was making the rounds on the Internet. She is a teacher. He told me that he spoke at another graduation (his daughter’s high school graduation in DC) and used almost the same speech, this time attributing the poem to me,” according to Mali on his live journal.

But still, it’s difficult to look at this situation and not see how easy it is to lose control of our poems -- particularly when sped by technology to every corner of the globe in a matter of heartbeats. Certainly, as Mali noted earlier, “The poems aren’t yours as soon as they get published.” But there’s something different about this case, something vaguely unsettling.

I think it’s fundamentally disturbing that a poem was presented by a prominent figure at a major forum, in front of thousands of people -- and not a single person present had the least idea who the author of the poem is. Zip. Nada. Certainly, there’s an ongoing and serious intellectual debate about intellectual property and the Internet, what with the advent of music downloads and such, but honestly... When you download that old Mr. Mister song, at least you know what it is you’re downloading and who created it. In Mali’s case, not a single person who heard the poem at the Yale commencement ceremony had the opportunity to think, “Hey. Neat poem. Let’s go buy the book.”

This isn’t a question of blame -- as noted earlier, this is pretty much a “no harm, no foul” situation -- but it does need to be taken seriously. If a piece of writing is so moving, so vital that it needs to be shared with anyone, then it’s important enough to know the name of the person who wrote it.

For Mali, the fallout continues -- a quick Google search indicates that the version of the poem read by Friedman at Yale has begun yet another round of circulation, inspired by the speech. And so it continues….

(Of course, William Safire misquoted Whitman the other day, so maybe it’s just New York Times columnists that have a problem....)

Victor Infante