Taking a risk-

[mary_j_59]

I am rather upset about the state of the world - the world news, of course, is beyond horrible. I don't even want to comment on it. But I've also been reading about the plagiarism debacle in the Harry Potter fandom, and this has persuaded me that, in general, it is a very poor idea to put one's original works online. One of the boys in writing club wanted me to post the revisions of a couple of fairy tales I've been working on. But I do hope to publish them someday, so, even though very few people read this journal, I don't want to take the risk.

However, there is one original work which I think deserves an audience, and which is not likely to be published elsewhere - it does not fit in with the book of poems I'm working on, and I can't imagine anyone stealing a poem, in any case. There's no profit in it. So - because of the state of the world - I am going to post this one poem. It was written in 2004, after the Abu Ghraib scandal, and is copyrighted to me - Mary Johnson.


Innocent Victims


There are those who say
There are no innocent victims.
Thus, Odysseus killed those servant girls
Raped by the suitors.
Their shame was their guilt.
(He had none.)

Thus, Fatima, raped by the invaders,
Begged the Mujahideen to kill her.
(They did.)

Do warriors feel shame? Do soldiers?
Or is it only the weak, the women and children
Who feel it?

Shame is a heavy burden,
More crushing than guilt.
Those who carry it
Can neither raise their heads
Nor straighten their backs.
Their footsteps drag; their eyes are blinded
By its weight.

The heroes and the warriors
Do not know this burden.
If they did,
Could they carry it?

They, the judges,
Have no shame.
Their guilt is
The shame of others.
(But they do not know it.)



Mary Johnson 2004, in memory of all the innocent victims. May there be peace, and may we help to bring it.

Comments

[nemesister.livejournal.com]

That is wonderful, really, very powerful and painfully true.

I have to think of something else: It's not a good idea to make something public on the internet, if you want to publish it later anyway from what I've heard. I think you can not sell the publishing rights for something already public. If they find out.
Good luck with publishing them, you are fantastic with words!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for the encouragement, and also the advice. It had not occured to me that you might effectively sign over your copyright - or at least your right to publish elsewhere - by posting on the net. I know it has been an issue for us getting full text magazine and newspaper databases, and I know these are very expensive because the right to distribute on the web must be paid for - but I had no idea that, if you published anything on a weblog, you could not publish it later in hard copy. That's scary! And I'm now almost sorry I posted my "Inklings" essay on Rowling, Duane and Williams, because it strikes me that one might have been publishable. OTOH, my main goal for all the fan writings is just to have readers, and the web's a good forum for that. So I'm not *really* sorry.

Anyway, I'm really, really glad you like the poem. It's rather different from most of my others - I wrote it in anger. I have a couple of others that are creeepy, but this is the only one that's enraged, I think. It's also the only one that's overtly political. My fear was that it was heavy handed, rather than powerful, but I'm very glad it worked for you.

[nemesister.livejournal.com]

It's not really a thing of you can not do it, as much as that it can lead to problems with the publisher (from what I've heard), so it's better to be cautious the bigger and more important the project is. There are people publishing fandom essays that were already online, like this project recently announced on hp_essays, aren't they?

[ginamariewade.livejournal.com]

Excellent poem.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks!