Would that the uncertainties of copyright law in my industry garnered so much attention.
American poetry criticism faces a major problem, one that has nothing to do with poetry, or readers, or anything remotely literary. The problem is that a critic who wants to quote a poem in a book has to face a permissions regime that ranges from unpredictable to plain crazy, as I discovered while working on a guidebook to modern poetry for general readers. The permissions took months to compile, and the initial estimate was nearly $20,000.
The difficulty is not so much that the copyright system is restrictive (although it can be), but that no one has any idea exactly how much of a poem can be quoted without payment. Under the “fair use” doctrine, quotation is permitted for criticism and comment, so you’d think this is where a poetry critic could hang his hat. But how much use is fair use?
If you ask publishers, the answer varies — a lot. Some think a quarter of a short poem is appropriate, some think almost an entire poem can be acceptable in the right circumstances, and many others believe you should quote only three or four lines. If you want to play it safe — and that’s what your own publisher will most likely prefer — then you’ll find yourself adhering to the three- or four-line standard.
But that standard doesn’t make much sense. Poems, like excuses, come in all shapes and sizes. They range from single lines to book length. And individual lines range from one word to whatever will fit on the page. Consequently, three or four lines can be 3 words or 70. And what about poems that aren’t lineated at all? Or visual poems? George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” is famously shaped like a pair of wings — if Herbert were alive today, could we quote a feather?
Nor does it help to say that the standard should be, say, 5 percent of a given poem. Here’s the entirety of Monica Youn’s poem “Ending”:
Freshwater stunned the beaches.
I could sleep.
What’s 5 percent of that? “Fr”?
A much more reasonable standard would come from the actual custom and practice of poetry criticism as it exists in book reviews and critical articles. There, a far more liberal standard — even permitting quotation of entire poems — has been the norm for decades. (The Poetry Foundation and the Center for Social Media advocate for a similarly flexible approach.)
This is the standard book publishers should recognize. As things stand, poets and critics are at the mercy of an incoherent system. Unless you happen to be a lawyer with a sympathetic publisher (as I am), it’s difficult to negotiate your way to something reasonable.
The current generation of younger critics is one of the strongest in decades, and poets, publishers and readers would benefit greatly if those writers were relieved of confusion over copyright. As Wallace Stevens once wrote ... actually, on second thought, maybe it would be safer to leave that to your imagination.
David Orr, the author of “Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry,” writes a column on poetry for The Times Book Review.