I have just found out from a friend of mine that someone going by the name of poetrycriminal (see his page here) has been putting my poems on his blog and passing them off as his own.
His profile has been set to private (embarrassed perhaps?) so I can’t see them, but the lovely Penny Sailor informs me that he put A Poet’s Work Is Never Done and I Don’t Get Out of Bed For Less Than Ten Grand on his blog. He even had the audacity to change the name of the former. Fucking cheek. Because clearly I’m an illiterate cunt who needs his working editing by someone called poetrycriminal.
Penny warned him she was onto him and I threatened him with legal action yesterday. He has now taken the offending items off his blog, but that hardly matters. This is not the first time this has happened. Last year a bloke called Gav performed whole sets of my work and passed them off as his own. Read the account here. When this happens a part of me is flattered that someone thinks enough of my work to rip it off, but only a small part of me. I’m a professional writer, I make my living from my poems and I am sufficiently confident in my abilities that I don’t need to be ripped off to feel like I am achieving something with my work. It makes my blood boil that some fucking upstart has the audacity to pretend they wrote my poems. How. Fucking. Dare. You.
I love being able to post my work online, either on my blog or my website. Often these are first drafts and get a decent enough response for me to want to continue doing so. I am not going to be be bullied into not doing so by asinine dickheads who think it’s ok to claim credit for my hard work. But let me make this very clear to anyone considering doing the same as poetrycriminal or Gav. You might think my career sad and tawdry enough to rip me off and have no one notice, but I can assure you they will and you will get a terse letter from my solicitors. Do not take me to task on this one, you will find me a tireless and uncompromising opponent.
Hopefully that’ll be the last I have to say on the subject.