What I have done is simply added some screen shots of the work as it appeared on my Facebook page and her Myspace page, along with the snippets that appeared in both works. Fair warning, I am now naming someone here in this post and I won't blame anyone for not scrolling through if you're not comfortable with that. She also removed the poem from her Myspace page. I stand by the contention that she stole work from me.
I sigh as I write this, because I really wish I didn't have to do it. I wish I felt comfortable just ignoring recent events and going about my merry way.
The thing is, online communities, especially online communities like the Diabetes Community are based in trust. We pour our hearts and souls into blog posts, essays, stories and poetry and we put those pieces out their for the world to see. I don't expect that I can trust anyone outside of the community to not steal the work that's presented, but I feel like within the walls of the community, I shouldn't have to wonder if something I've written is going to end up showing up in someone else's work.
I tried to contact the person I address below by email, with no response. We had had a bit of a falling out earlier this year over another matter, but I basically just asked for an explanation (maybe I had missed something?). I also reached out (without naming any names) on Facebook for advice, and I got two private responses from other community member who'd shared similar experiences or had similar concerns with the same blogger. It was those community members' shared experiences that actually signaled for me that this is of real concern to our community as a whole.
So, I write this with a heavy heart - but also with a message that if you're writing online, you must understand that trust is sometimes violated and you must (unfortunately) keep an eye out for your own writing and the writing of others in the community.
Recently, it was pointed out to me that a fellow diabetes logger had "lifted" some lines from a poem I'd posted on Facebook awhile back (in May 2009). In August 2009, this blogger posted a poem on another site (Myspace) that contained full lines of what I'd written - in a piece with an essence completely different from my poem.
Screenshots:
Of my poem - dated May 2009:
Of Amylia Grace's poem - dated August 2009:
Snippets lifted from my poem:
Untitled - by Nicole Purcell (April 3, 2009)
She opens the door
Quiet heart aching
And their (her?) house
Breathes out
His smell
She thinks she hears him
Say her name
Again
She knows better
Than to imagine that way
****
Snippets as they appeared in Amylia Grace's poem on August 21, 2009
She
opens the front door, heart
still crowded with longing as
the house breaths out his smell.
to think she hears him
say her name again, soft like grass swishing
at water’s edge. She knows better than to imagine.
that way.
