Four Quarters Volume 208 Number 2 Four Quarters (Second Series): Fall 1994 Article 1 Vol. 8, No. 2 9-1994 Four Quarters (Second Series): Fall 1994 Vol. 8, No. 2 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters Recommended Citation (1994) "Four Quarters (Second Series): Fall 1994 Vol. 8, No. 2," Four Quarters: Vol. 208 : No. 2 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters/vol208/iss2/1 This Complete Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Four Quarters by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. €)icioioi cy^t/r» Quartets VOL. 8, NO. 2 Second Series | FALL. 1994 Four Dollars ...M ^ IHK^ /\ isri -J- ^^™ ?^ o Hk , 1 9828 ..... p^ -•• .4" IL. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/fourquarters821994unse 1 €)icioioi cy^af-» Quarter^ VOLUME 8, NUMBER 2, SECOND SERIES FALL, 1994 Table of Contents QUARTER NOTES John Keenan, Plagiarist Plays Poet; Ekiitor Plays Fool 3 Joe Coogan, Take Me Out to No Boll Game 4 John P. Rossi, Drinking Men 7 POEMS Martin Galvin, "P," 10 Mary Winters, "Lawyer's Office," 1 Jane McClellan, "An Unseasonal Freeze on Jekyll Island," 12 William Virgil Davis, "Castles in the Air," 17 John Fandel, "At the Hearing," 18 Lyn Lifshin, "The Child We Will Not Have," 25 "Mint Leaves at Yaddo," 26 Claude Koch, "The Poem," 38 Charles Edward Mann, "At the Museum of Natural History," 39 Pamela Hughes, "Bangladesh, May 1991," 40 Gay Wachman, "Father," 51 Pamela Steed Hill, "The Proofer," 52 "Wanting to Swim," 54 Gerald J. Johnson, "An Antique Rime," 55 FICTION Peter Slater, Storm 19 Andrew Wright, The Mitigations oJLucy Eraser 27 Leslie Pietrzyk, First Manassas 41 ESSAY Kat Meads, An Emily/Sylvia Pilgrimage j j ARTS & LEISURE Bill Wine, On ScreewThe Things We Did Last Summer 56 INDEX 60 CONTRIBUTORS 63 COVER Original art, "Emily and Sylvia," by David McShane for Four Quarters Editor: JOHN J. J^ENAN Associate Editor: JOHN P. ROSSI Editorial Assistant; JOANNE CAWLEY Desktop Publishing Specialist: GERVASIO T. RAMIREZ Editorial Assistants: Nora Arant, John S. Baky, Daniel Burke, FSC, James Butler, Justin Cronin, Toni Culjak, John Duffy, Gabriel Fagan FSC, Robert T. Fallon, David George, Richard Grande, Howard L. Hannum, Andrew Jaffe, John C. Kleis, Vincent Wing, Dolores Lehr, Rita Mall, Emeiy Mollenhauer, FSC, Glenn Morocco, Michelle Patterson, John J. Rooney, Frank Ryan, John J. Seydow, Richard Tiedeken, Judy Trachtenberg. FOUR QUARTERS (ISSN-00 15-9 107) is published semiannually in the Spring and Fall by thefaculty ofLa Salle University, 1900 W. Olney Ave., Philadelphia^ PA 19141. Four dollars per copy. Subscriptions: $8.00for one year; $13. 00for two years. Copyright © 1 994 La Salle University. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accom- panied by a SASE. Available in Microformfrom Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Ml 481 06. Indexed in American Humanities Index and Index ofAmerican Periodical Verse. Distributed by B. DeBoer Inc., Nutley, NJ. DCOO Quarter Notes JOHN ICEENAN Authors need to believe that their manuscripts will get a reading, and editors need to believe that the work they're spending hours reading is the Plagiarist Plays Poet; original creation of the writer. 1 don't Editor Plays Fool want to think that the manuscript I'm reading is the stolen words and in- "Oh my God!" I exploded. My wife sights of another innocent dupe who looked at me in alarm. Since 1 had only had talent, not guile." been quietly reading my Fall issue of The American Scholar, she was unpre- 1 was warming to the subject now. pared for my outburst of shock and in- "OK, so plagiarism is not on the same dignation. scale as murder or rape, but when peo- ple destroy trust, they're putting acid "What's wrong?' she said. She wor- in the drinking water and putting sand ries about my blood pressure, among in the mortar that holds society to- many other things. gether. When 1 start wondering about "It's him," 1 said. "The plagiarist the authenticity of every manuscript I who's been stealing this poet's stuff! handle, I feel that 1 have lost some- And 1 published one of his poems. 1 thing I need if 1 am to function as an mean one of the poems he stole from editor. Plagiarism sends out shock this guy Neal Bowers. He sent it to me waves that reach beyond the original under the name of David Sumner in victim, shattering the trust of editors the Fall of '90 and I used this poem and readers too." and another one of his—or Bowers' or "I don't understand why someone God knows whose—^in the Spring issue would do that," Alice said, reaching for '9 of 1 . And 1 sent this guy a check for the magazine I had been reading. $2.00 a line for poems that weren't "Does the author say why he thinks even his! 1 feel like a fence for stolen this is happening?" property. 1 also feel like a gullible fool. Poor Bowers, imagine what he must be "He doesn't really understand it, nor do 1. It can't be the money. Many of feeling. The article says this Sumner the little only in copies. has been systematically plagiarizing mags pay And his published poems and has publish- he doesn't even see his real name in print—just pseudonym. he's ed them in over 30 journals. At least a Maybe a frustrated editor. I'm not alone in being fooled." He does make minor changes in the poems he plagiarizes. "But how would you have known," Maybe that gives him a sense of actual says my comforting Alice. 'You can't participation in the creative process. If have read every poem published and he can't write a successful poem, he remembered each one." can tinker with the words of someone "I know. That's part of why 1 feel so else's and imagine that he's made it upset. I feel so powerless. 1 have been his own and then put his own title on taken advantage of by someone I it. I'm no psychologist but this behav- trusted. That's an ugly feeling. ior seems sick and pathetic to me." Authors and editors need one another. €)€00 Quarter Notes Alice was reading Bowers' article. "If I knew how to prevent bad things "Oh my God, "she said. from happening to innocent people, I would write the mother of all self-help "1 already said that." books," I said, trying to joke away my "The plagiarist is bad enough," she sense of helplessness. "Maybe a Clean, said. "But Bowers says some editors Well-Lighted Place is our only refuge. he warned ignored his warning and So I am going to clean house and shed published the plagiarisms with no light upon the darker side of one per- more than a shrug. Apparently not eve- son's nature by publicly stating in ryone feels as strongly about plagia- print: rized stuff as you do." David S. steals "Some folks, editors included, don't Jones poems written and published oth- get very upset about any sleazy tactic. by ers submits They're immune to moral outrage be- and these poems as his own. cause they have grown up in a society He uses the pseu- donym David Sumner. where lying and stealing is the norm. (At least it's not shooting someone, 'You see? I said to my wife. I can be they will tell you, and everybody does direct too. it. Haven't you ever served on a jury?) If some behavior has an ugly name, don't change the behavior, change the oooo name. Don't call it lying and stealing; call it spin doctoring , adapting, bor- rowing, using a resource person. Stop me if I start sounding too much like JOE COOGAN Bill Bennett or Dan Quayle." "Isn't plagiarist an ugly enough word for you? Take Me Out To No Ball Game "I don't think it is, now that you Freud knew it. Adler knew it. Cer- press me." I said. "It brings up images tainly Carl Jung knew it, and you can of students trying to get away with bet your id the networks and team something, or other students too inept owners know that all sports are hot- to understand that changing a word or beds of sex, and a particuletrly seamy two from a source was not enough. kind of sex at that. Is it possible that And student plagiarism is often easy to all this has something to do with the detect (even if difficult and time-con- astounding cancellation of the '94 suming to prove). No, I think publish- baseball season? Is it possible that ing plagiarists who take money under "the sin that dare not say its name" is false pretenses deserve good old-fash- baseball? Think about it. ioned direct language. Words like thief, The startling results of relevant re- fraud, cheat, liar come to mind. But search have been kept secret for the name-calling won't do any good." many years since I reported them in "What will?" said my wife who is an obscure psychiatric journal of lim- nothing if not direct. ited circulation. Emboldened by the €)€00 Quarter Notes Freedom of Information Act, I now (Does anyone here know if Michael Jor- have the courage to take the danger- dan's seeing a psychiatrist?) It seems ous liberty of exposing them to the he suffered from the fear that a ball world.