Art as Theft / Theft as Art

Using Imitation

True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance, As those move easiest who have learned to Dance. Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

What similarity do you notice?

Imitation in Art
Michaelangelos famous sculpture Piet depicts Mary holding her son Jesus, after he is brought down from the cross after his crucifixion. It is on exhibit in the Vatican in Rome, and has often been used as a model by other artists.

Jacques-Louis Davids The Death of Marat is an idealized portrait of his good friend, the postFrench Revolution patriot and fiery orator Jean-Paul Marat, stabbed to death in his bathtub in 1793. Davids use of Christs right arm from the Piet sends an obvious symbolic message

What is Imitation (in writing)?

Imitation writing is taking the writing of a master and using the structure and patterns as a form from which to work and learn. Perhaps its easier to think of as an informal, non-binding apprenticeship

What good is it?

Imitation allows inexperienced writers to learn from those who are more experienced. Imitation collapses the distance between the learning writer and the text. Imitation is a different form of thinking, allowing the inexperienced writer to discover and explore thoughts they may not have even known they have.

For example
Model: Here it was motels and billboards and the hot jangle of neon bursting red over four lanes of concrete. (Ellington White, Iago and the Tired Red Moor) Here it was calculus books and term papers and the confining rules of behavior boiling up in students.

Here it was umbrellas and towels and the suffocating heat blanketing the granules of sand.

Another model?
A man on horseback passes slowly, accompanied by a boy on foot who carries a willow branch. (Joan Colebrook) NOW ITS YOUR TURN

Student sample imitations

A man in a Mercedes flies by, accompanied by a woman who has a Coach handbag.
A princess on a horse passes slowly, accompanied by a prince on foot who carries a jewelled staff.

What about Poetry?

Separation
Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. (W.S. Merwin)

Student sample imitations

This assignment has filled me with yesterdays garbage. Everything I do is touched with my boredom.

Another model
Image
Old houses were scaffolding once And workmen whistling. (T.W. Hulme) YOUR TURN AGAIN

Student sample imitations

Old teachers were happier once With students smiling. Old runners were faster once With spectators cheering. These poems were ideas once And a poet struggling.

If it works for ONE line

This Is Just To Say Please Accept My Apologies

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

And which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold. (William Carlos Williams)

I didnt mean to steal your Porsche When you were not around.
A nice car Very easy to drive. The Police couldnt catch me. Forgive me. It was such a beautiful car So shiny And so fast (Bern Brestek)

Zimmers Head Thudding Against the Blackboard

At the blackboard I had missed Five number problems in a row, And was about to foul a sixth, When the old, exasperated nun Began to pound my head against My six mistakes. When I cried She threw me back into my seat, Where I hid my head and swore That very day Id be a poet, And curse her yellow teeth with this. (Paul Zimmer)

Rhapsody in Black and Blue

Seated at the piano I had played Five wrong notes in a row. I was about to strike a sixth When my old hag of a teacher Began to pound my head against The keyboard. When I cried, She plopped me back in my seat Where I hung my head low and swore That very day Id become a truck driver And run her over with my semi. (Stacey Lee, modeled after Paul Zimmer)

What can you imitate?

Forms of: sentences / lines paragraphs / stanzas entire texts From sources such as: novels / short stories poems newspapers magazines plays / screenplays essays really, anything!

But you cant publish it

Oh no? How about comparing this:

Police think they can see me lean I'm tint so it ain't easy to be seen When you see me ride by they can see the glean And my shine on the deck and the TV screen
-- Ridin (Chamillionaire feat. Krayzie Bone)

With this:

First in my class here at M.I.T. Got skills, I'm a champion of D-&-D MC Escher that's my favorite MC Keep your 40--I'll just have an Earl Grey tea
-- White and Nerdy (Weird Al Yankovic)

Practice!
There are two times in a mans life when he should not speculate: when he cant afford it, and when he can. (Mark Twain) In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes. (Julius Caesar) Character is a victory, not a gift. (proverb)