Intruder

     The song ends with "I am the intruder."

      How often do we allow things--even otherwise important things--to intrude on our message?

Love is the price of smiles.

     Above we see a typical Facebook-style anonymous photomeme:  a platitude pasted onto a schmaltzy picture.  For better or worse, the message is direct.  The reader can proceed immediately to interpreting and/or appreciating the words.

"Love is the price of smiles."

     When we put quotation marks around the text we create a distraction.  People wonder:  "Who said this?"  If the author isn't identified the default assumption is that one is quoting oneself.  As we squirrels say, it is "vanity without the vanity."

"Love is the price of smiles." - Earl Gray

      If we introduce the author's name readers may wonder whether "the point is the point" or if it is an effort to highlight the writer.  If that happens to be the poster (as here) we might add "shameless self-promotion" into the mix.  If one is quoting someone else proper etiquette may seem to demand attribution.

"Love is the price of smiles." - from "Love is a Weakness" by Earl Gray

      Mentioning the source text merely adds another distracting dimension.  Are we to concentrate on the sentiment, the publication or the writer?

      Clearly, if we want people to focus on words [and pictures] we should present nothing but words [and pictures].  If these are someone else's does this constitute plagiarism?  No, because we aren't signing the meme, suggesting we wrote the aphorism.  Is it copyright infringement?  Not if the original work is significantly longer than the meme itself (which is almost always the case).

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #71

     If nothing else, this "authorial intrusion" is one reason why people are more likely to read Facebook or, to stretch a point, blogs rather than novels and treatises.  It may be why some of our best poets use pseudonyms.  It also explains why more and more articles are being published without the author's name in the byline (e.g. all those published here, "staff writers", et cetera).

        And, of course, it also underscores Rule #71. 

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      “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

                  - attributed to Pablo Picasso

     "A wit is always ready with a clever word. A half wit is always
  ready with a clever word of someone else's."

                 - "Leanne" (Freewrights, 22-04-2008)

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Signed,

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

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Context

     "The first time Sir Winston Churchill said 'Never before...has so much been owed by so many to so few' he was talking about London bookies."

       - Comedian James Lamb

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      As with humor, poetry can often benefit from contexts...and the more the merrier.  Let me cite an example of dual contexts provided by the author.
 
      If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with this video from the novid "Love is a Weakness", where open mic poetess Kemla says goodbye to her lover and friends:



     Once you've experienced it as a goodbye, consider its genesis.

      Kemla originally wrote this as her wedding vow.

      Try re-reading it now.

      Oh, and did you recognize it as a sonnet?

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Love is a Weakness

You showed me how to wait in Capistrano.
You showed me love is a weakness stronger than power. 
You showed me grace is the present tense of sorrow
but what time can take from us was never ours.

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You showed me home is a person not a place.
I watch the time collapsing in your wake.
My hands retrace your touch across my face,
along my breast, toward the next mistake.

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You said there cannot be a little candor;
the truth, once trimmed, can never last.
You swore you'd never flatter, never pander.
I promised you an unregretted past.
If chance is kind you'll understand this vow,
this wish, a thousand happy nights from now.

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