We Haz Fame!

Remember this little guy?

Before he grew all big and tall and confident? Well a funny thing happened on the way to puberty. As an intense part of his younger speech therapy days was daily rhyming and poetry. Now the young Boy 1 used to write beautiful poems and was quite unimpressed with his Madmother trying to make light of it with terms such as poo, bum, and the worst one - fart being used. Anyhoos, he soldiered through and with some one-on-one brainstorming sessions produced some pretty damn good poems. Most of which were lost in the drunk drive fiasco - remember that? No? Before blog time methinks.

Fast forward to the world of today. A writing contest is being touted at the school. Can be old, new, poems or prose. Both boys decide to submit older work. Boy 2's poem is one of the first things I posted when I started my blog. Boy 1's was even older. He wrote it in Grade 1, yes in those intense rhyming days. Now, I was so proud (as was his speechie) that I posted this on an autism poetry website. With copyright (whilst his christian name was on the piece, oh and age = 7, it was my name that appeared after the little circled c) held by moi truly! So, although I luckily had a copy saved in a file on my work pc, I figured save time google. Google is a very useful tool, let me say.



You wanna know what I found?

This poem (without permission I might add) has been used:

• in a brochure for an American university's autism programme
• in a sermon
• in a play
• on a FB page for a support group in Maritius
• in a school website
• in a book - this one gets me as it is a bestseller and the author should have known better. Am following this up as we speak.

Now, the site it was posted originally on is pretty clear about copyright, and my name and contact details were obtainable. Half of me is beaming in pride at my very talented boy, the other half is seriously pissed that people take liberties like this. The university has been great, and I have, with a few conditions, given permission to continue using it. The author - well, that one is pending.

I'm also wondering if the competition judges will accuse him of plagiarism seeing as you can google it and it comes up so many places. Am going to talk to the teacher today to let her know.

And no, I'm not posting it here, I've learnt my lesson on THAT one!

My boy haz famze!