You could say that this kind of interplay between originality and tradition is the ultimate subject of literary scholarship: something borrowed, something new.
The line between originality and pastiche is fine indeed in cookbooks, and what constitutes plagiarism is harder to define than in a poetry book.
"On Eriskay" stages an encounter between the poet and a kelpie "at the fence", otherwise the dividing line between human and non-human realms, but also – in a poem that updates Arnold's "The Forsaken Merman" – the fence posts between originality and tradition.
Starting from Walter Benjamin's idea that there is no qualitative difference between original and translation in an age of technical reproduction, the author reflects upon the many aspects of an endless continuation of writing within the field of tension between originality and non-originality.
The book explores a tension between originality and monoculture by focusing on the artist's relationship with a commercialized world and its marketing of free art and consumer products.
The lines between originality, plagiarism, cultural critique, and mass-produced art have always been a little blurry, but 2016 could well be the year of the inspired, professional art copier.
