Double whammy (but a big Yehey!)

It was the young and often excellent poet and friend Angelo Suarez who sent the alert about a big mistake dating back a good seven years. The alert itself came nearly a year late.

As early as May last year, another young and exceptional poet, Ned Parfan, called attention “to this poem ‘Echo’ by award-winning Fil-Am poet Rick Barot, because Lawrence Bernabe spotted a slightly different version of this same poem, with the same title, published in One Hundred Love Poems (UP Press, 2004), but under the name Tita Lacambra V. Ayala (!).”

Alas, that anthology was co-edited by good friend Jimmy Abad and me. And now I have to own up to the gaffe, one of grossly incorrect attribution, since as I recall, I was the one in charge of contacting and following up with our Fil-Am friends when we made the call for the theme poetry.

I immediately forwarded the info from Ned, as quoted by Gelo, to Jim in Antipolo and Ricky de Ungria in Davao, as the latter could perhaps inquire from Tita if she had even noticed the poem erroneously credited to her. As Ned pointed out, it wasn’t in Tita’s recently published collection, Tala Mundi, but showed up in Rick Barot’s own collection, Want, which came out in the USA in 2008, albeit that one certainly was a revised version. Per additional info from Ned, Rick is now an assistant professor of English at Pacific Lutheran University. 

Ned wrote: “(T)here is even an available audio of Barot reading the poem, at fishhousepoems.org (although with some bites missing). Our conclusion, then, is that the real author must be Barot. Furthermore, he (Lawrence) notes that Ayala and Barot are alphabetically close so it might really just have been some human error somewhere (committed by) the anthology editors’ staff. As far as we know there is no indication that the poem is a collaboration between the two...” 

Lawrence and Ned are right. “Echo” is indeed Barot’s poem. I will write him a sincere apology. I recall having communicated with him by e-mail. And even presumed that I had sent him a copy of the Love Poems antho, as I usually do for contributors  although I now understand (since I can’t find my own last copy) that Barot doesn’t appear in the book at all.

Well, his poem did, so I certainly slipped up big-time as co-editor, somewhere during the course of selection, attribution and design-layout work on the book that featured a hundred poets.

I have to apologize to dear Tita, too, since instantly, the issue of possible plagiarism cropped up  albeit it was highly unlikely for her to have gotten hold of a poem from abroad, by a young fellow who still had to publish it anywhere, and pass it off as her own four years before it came out in final form among the real author’s other poems.

Okay, that’s reason enough to don Sackcloth No. 1 for this week and beyond.

Sackcloth No. 2 must be made of infinitely coarser material, with very sharp barbs woven in, and if possible, a motor that activates the conduct of self-flagellation with whipping coils, glass shards and a myriad slivers every time it’s slipped on. As it has been  by me. And the purple robe that practically pleads for self-redemption still decorates me head to toe, last I peered out from the hood and looked at a merciless mirror.

This is why it is hardly of any consequence that the usual lynch mob that marauds through social media is having such a fun time indulging in vituperation. ’Fraid the hoots and demands for my head can’t be met just yet. It’s still wrapped up in that hoop called shame (and scandal in the family). Don’t worry, guys  I’m reading up on seppuku. My concern is that even as the ritual of honor will surely entertain you, I might just break wind in the process.

In any case, for those who aren’t privy yet to this latest charge of plagiarism (surely a blooming buzzword in our day and age, here and now, given recent indiscretions of varying stripes), here’s my version of what happened.

For its sports-themed issue of April 2011, Rogue magazine asked for an article on whether I thought the PBA would survive hard times, and how. Pressed for time, I had nearly completed my first draft when I recalled that Atty. Rudy Salud had passed away, and that his contributions to the league when he served as its commissioner had been so substantial that I might as well weave it into the article, as a mini-tribute na rin. 

Now, I also do editing for GMANews.TV (now called GMANews Online), specifically on daily sports stories. There had been a long story on Salud that I had reworked. And the practice we had online was to credit both the writer of the draft submission and the editor. I sought to recycle, initially, a few paragraphs from that story and work them into the Rogue piece, as its middle portion. The more I reread what sportswriter Rey Joble had drafted and which I had finalized, the more paragraphs I appropriated. And as I’ve already disclosed to both Howie Severino, EIC of GMAnews Online, and Mari Ugarte, EIC of Rogue, in all truth, the quotation marks and initial attribution to Rey Joble and GMANews Online were dropped, intentionally by me  as the marks made the chunk look so clunky. I thought I’d work the credits back in somehow, once I was about to finalize the submission for Rogue. That didn’t happen, and that’s my grievous fault.

Too much work, lack of sleep, my state of no-mind at the time, maybe even a hangover, let alone deadline pressure  at best and worst I can claim as mitigating factors. But in essence, I became careless and stupid. Ideally, well, in smart hindsight now, I should have just shared the byline with the guy who calls me “pardner”  the hardworking sportswriter Rey Joble.

When sports blogger Jaemark Tordecilla announced his discovery of my alleged plagiarism in his blog cheekily titled “Fire Quinito,” my first reaction was to call up Rey and apologize for the apparent impression that I had simply taken his work and passed it off as my own. Mercifully, Rey said he understood what happened that led to my transgression, and that there was nothing to forgive.

So I wrote Jaemark my explication or clarification, and made sure I apologized to readers and everyone else whom I may have offended with my blithe, cavalier treatment of a fellow writer, no matter how junior  as an effort that wasn’t meant to just stave off what would surely be a firestorm of condemnation, but to lay the cards down as they had fallen, no matter if as a terrible inadvertence.

In any case, I said my piece, and Jaemark was kind enough to post it in his blog. And I was a bit relieved to note that the first half-a-dozen comment senders appeared to have appreciated my coming clean on the matter. Since then, of course, as I’ve heard from friends, I have been rendered into mincemeat. Thank goodness I have no time or taste for wallowing in mean-spirited bloodlust.

What matters is that Rey Joble has forgiven me. What matters is whether Howie Severino and Mari Ugarte believe my story. What matters is that friends and supporters who know me have pitched in with words of solace and encouragement.

I don’t really mean to make light of this matter, especially since an academic case could be made of the issue of whether an editor can lay claim to part ownership of written work, as has been argued about in the past. (There seems to be a more liberal view of propriety when it comes to journalism; whether that’s correct or not, or good or bad, I myself am in no agreement with either stance, although here I did show myself to be loosely interpretive of copyright.)

Let’s face it: this old man made a mistake, at the very least, for which I am old man enough to own up, and be genuinely contrite about. I appreciate the words of concern and sympathy from friends, even if some remarks do make me smile (thus seeming to make light of the matter). I just can’t help it. A couple of comments from poet-friends in the Visayas bore particular appeal, to my academic as well as ludic sense.

One texted: “Real writers know it was anything but plagiarism. There should be distinctions. For me the word applies only when the copied piece aspires to literary worth not reportorial purpose. Each of those ‘stolen’ texts is more of a PRECIS than anything. You were remiss somewhere else. Some literary swordsman should pick up where you have gone all meek. Alas, I’m known to be your close friend.”

Another FB’d his comment: “It’s nothing serious. In the legal profession we do it all the time, now with even more impunity. Besides, as Pablo Picasso aid, ‘To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.’”

Touché. Ouch. Guilty. Make that half-guilty. I used Rey Joble’s words, too, and didn’t credit him as I should have, most properly. Again, so sorry.

A double whammy it was this month  in an appropriate season, too. But I wonder if I must also be doing something right  since as I write this, I am enjoying something else anew, as part of a media fam-tour group on a Yangzi river cruise to the Three Gorges, and gorging all the way.

Yet such is life, with its ups and downs, that even before this present indulgence, there was something else I exulted in, but found in all regrettable irony that I couldn’t physically be part of it.

My darling daughter Mirava graduated from college this past weekend. She was a participant in the College of Arts and Letters (CAL)’s ritual march last Saturday, and the UP Diliman university commencement rites yesterday, Sunday. With a GWA of 1.561, she graduated cum laude with a degree in Creative Writing.

Congrats and much love to you, precious babe. You do your erratic and occasionally shameless dad proud, and may have even made up for his own sorry status as a Peyups dropout decades ago.

Whatever else you may do in the future to redress my wrongs, while I know it may be inadvertent, I’ll still be very proud and happy for you. Smiley.