Note

I've added a Content Notice to this Blogger account's main page, just below the profile. It places a copyright on everything I've written here, 'except where noted'. The exceptions are those versions of the poem called "My Mandolin Sings", all of which are covered by a Creative Commons license, along with all posts those versions appeared in or directed the reader to see. Other than those, everything in this blog is copyrighted by me.

The individual copyright notices on other separate poems I wrote, posted and commented on here remain, just to make sure the distinction between them and "My Mandolin Sings" is crystal clear.

When I started this blog almost five years ago, I decided against including a specific copyright notice, because I wanted this material to be freely adaptable by anyone interested in doing so. I wanted to avoid inhibiting any reuse in any way.

But things have changed since then. This blog became longer and more involved, and the ideas and techniques within it became several entities that others could spin into a book or two, and -- for all I know -- earn themselves a considerable reputation and maybe even some money. This is a sensitive topic with me, so I have decided to copyright everything that rests herein, except "My Mandolin Sings" and its various versions and comments.

That this weblog could be adapted into a book of my own has obviously also occurred to me. That's why I created the Chronological Archive sidebar and the book-like organization under Pages, so clearly I have no problem with either approach, as long as I'm the one providing them.

I also have no problem with anyone using materials herein to stimulate their own original creative thinking and writing. That is, in fact, this blog's purpose.

One of my heroes is John Milton, who wrote many things with no expectation of any financial return whatsoever. We'd probably nowadays call that his pro bono work, borrowing a term from lawyers who take clients unable to pay them 'for the public good'. I doubt whether you can separate Milton's work like that -- he wrote everything he did largely for others' benefit -- but I think you get my drift. This blog is here for you to use as you see fit, but it's not here to steal.

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I want to acknowledge those who transmitted, informed and otherwise contributed to the contents of this blogbook. It was my great good fortune to have some of the best professors I could have had during my college years, and parts of their lectures remain with me like gems in a vault.

For various reasons, I don't want to mention the most influential by name at this time. However, I will say my courses in literature, language, philosophy and science at Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, NC, during the early 1970s, and English literature (especially for Chaucer, Shakespeare and the British novel) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the mid-1970s fill that storehouse I've found so valuable.

This is also true largely of the brother blog to this one

notinourstarsbutinourselves.blogspot.com

though the acknowledgements there would cull from a much larger list of courses and professors. As to my true teaching master the whole time, I think the titles to both blogs say it all.