Pickering plagiarized Marge Piercy and Jacob Glatstein for his “original” poem. We cut most of the garbage Stephan Pickering wrote, which was undoubtedly stolen from other sources. Below are the most egregious examples of passages that Stephan Pickering has stolen for his “original” poem.
The following section is totally Glatstein’s poem, not just the words in quotes:
[IV.
[Like a tiny candle over each grave,
[a cry will burn,
[each one for itself.
['I am I' --
[thousands of slaughtered I's
[will cry in the night:
['I am dead, unrecognized,
[my blood still unredeemed'.
[-- Ya'akov Glatshteyn / Yankev Glatshteyn / Jacob Glatstein, 1987. 'I have never been here before', p. 111 in: Ya'akov Glatshteyn, 1987. Selected poems of Yankev Glatshteyn [ed./trans. R.J. Fein] (Jewish Publication Society), 1-215 [Yiddish & English]
_______
The below section is stolen from “Growing up Haunted” in “The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme” by Marge Piercy. We have numbered the corresponding lines in each “poem”.
Pickering’s plagiarized version:
the underside of every leaf
is fear (1), shadows (2) gathering (3)
at the foot of our beds (4),
transforming gristle into haze (5),
made real by Hebrew letters
and syllables. (6)
_________
Marge Piercy’s original lines:
FEAR WAS THE UNDERSIDE OF EVERY LEAF (1)
we turned, the knowledge that our
cousins, our other selves, had been
starved and butchered to ghosts.
The question every smoggy morning
presented like a covered dish:
why are you living and all those
mirror selves, sisters, gone
into smoke like stolen cigarettes?
I remember my grandmother’s cry
When she learned the death of all she
Remembered, girls she bathed with,
Young men with whom she shyly
Flirted, wooden shul where
Her father rocked and prayed,
Red haired aunt plucking the
Balalaika, world of sun and snow
Turned to shadows on a yellow page. (2)
Assume no future you may not have
to fight for, to die for, muttered
GHOSTS GATHERED ON THE FOOT (3)
OF MY BED (4) EACH NIGHT. What you
carry in your blood is us,
the books we did not write,
music we could not make, a world
GONE FROM GRISTLE TO SMOKE (5), ONLY
AS REAL NOW AS WORDS CAN MAKE IT. (6)
Piercy's full poem is here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=WT8TAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT120&lpg=PT120&dq=The+art+of+blessing+the+day+Growing+up+Haunted+Marge+Piercy&source=bl&ots=vX6zXp_Vo3&sig=ETlomMeGKRvAfkvvezYsYaQ5wsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivm8yZ1NvbAhUytlkKHRWIDz0Q6AEwBnoECAEQSA#v=onepage&q=The%20art%20of%20blessing%20the%20day%20Growing%20up%20Haunted%20Marge%20Piercy&f=false