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# Fair Use
- URL: https://www.hawkword.com/poetry/fair-use/
- Published: 2024-01-14T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-01-14T12:00:00.000Z
- Description: With labels like "fair use" and "prior art", Derivative defended its existence: "Oh surely you can tell us two apart? This nitpicking, this insolent insistence that every sentence be a pure creation -- are alphabets e...
- Author: A. Gee
- Tags: Poetry, Sonnet, Allpoetry Import, #Import 2026-04-25 19:56

With labels like "fair use" and "prior art",  
Derivative defended its existence:  
"Oh surely you can tell us two apart?  
This nitpicking, this insolent insistence  
that every sentence be a pure creation --  
are alphabets exempt from this demand,  
or do they too require a citation?  
How would a reader try to comprehend --  
without a common canon on their tongue --  
the latticework of paragraphs and commas  
that place a given writer's work among  
those that transcend their periods; the dramas  
that we still cherish -- and their use is free.  
How are we then to be, or not to be?"