"Inveterate dandelions", original?

[vaneramos]

Help please, poetry lovers.

Just now I put the previous post, a new poem, behind a friends only filter because I had qualms about its originality. Specifically, I have a lurking feeling I read the image about an invasion of "inveterate dandelions" in a poem before. This is one of the pitfalls of stream of consciousness journaling. When you open your mind to the aether, sometimes amazing imagery springs to mind, but it can be difficult to tell what is truly inspired and what is merely remembered.

Google turns up nothing. If the phrase seems familiar to anyone, please tell me. If you can give a reference, so much the better.

I enjoy the image and would hate to scrap it because of a brain fart, but plagiarism is not my style.

Comments

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

I may not be much help. I read that as "invertebrate dandelions."

(My sinuses are killing me, see....)

[missprune.livejournal.com]

the new look of your journal is pretty. I think if you get no hits from Google on the phrase, you are reasonably safe -- at least it hasn't occurred in exactly that form anywhere. It certainly does not sound familiar to me.

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

Using a snippet like that in your own work, even if someone else wrote it, can't be considered plagiarism. If anyone ever calls you on it, just say you were paying homage to whomever it was that wrote it.

Our work is a culmination of our life experiences, including everything we've read and heard. If our inspiration is food for plagiarism, we're all guilty of partaking at some level.

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

PS: What is this new format you're blogging in? I like it!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Ha, that is cute!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm embedding my journal in my new website, and this spare look fits better with the feeling I'm trying to create there. Maybe it fits my poetry better, too.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The entire image of the last three lines seemed familiar to me. Maybe I dreamt it.

Thanks for you words here. Really, it does set at ease that rubber band twang that went off in my head a couple hours ago.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It is an S2 Style, "A Novel Conundrum", customized using the "Glossy Magazine" theme, and I have changed the background and link colours. I'm embedding the journal in my new website and wanted it to fit better with the spare feeling I'm creating there.

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

Stephen Dunn talked about having a poem of his plagiarized. The man lifted an entire piece about the southern New Jersey Shore, changing merely one word—the name of a bird. Even after he had been discovered, he wrote Stephen a letter rationalizing what happened and brazenly stating the poem was better with the change.

I can't remember the man's name, and I think that's the best punishment that could happen to him.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is certainly appropriate. I've had this uncomfortable feeling before. I can never tell whether it's real, or I'm just doubting my own creativity. I was merely playing with words when the phrase "inveterate dandelions" sprang out of nowhere. I actually had to look up the meaning of the adjective; reading the definition, I was startled by its aptness. Maybe that's why I have misgivings. But at worst, I have borrowed a two-word phrase and one idea.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

You (or someone) could use that in a parody of the poem, perhaps. <evil grin>

More seriously, I checked in a database called Poemfinder, which covers 125,000 poems in full text, and the phrase "inveterate dandelions" did not come up. Between that and Google, you're looking safer, unless you read obscure poets, I suppose.

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

There you go!

[bearfinch.livejournal.com]

A group of inveterate dandelions advanced on me once, and I cast a Speak with Plants spell to tell them to go elsewhere. However I haven't written anything about it.

And yes, I probably deserve to be smacked for being a smartass. :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

No, but you gave me a chuckle, which I needed just now.