This is a literary misunderstanding. It seems harsh to describe what Andrew Motion has done as plagiarism — particularly when he acknowledged his sources. That said, Ben Shephard, the historian upon whose work he largely drew, is clearly dismayed: what went wrong?

Etiquette, I’d say. Motion is correct that there is a long and noble tradition of found poetry — but I am not sure I would equate Ruth Padel’s use of her ancestor Charles Darwin’s words, say, with his use of Shephard’s text. This is tricky ground; but when I read (and admired) Motion’s poem on Saturday I wondered about who those voices “really” belonged to; perhaps because their transformation into poetry wasn’t quite complete. It’s the grounding in history that gives this poem its power: a clearer statement of what those sources were would not have weakened the work.

If that had been done, Shephard would have been in on the work from the start; I found it easy enough to imagine a conversation along the lines of, “Ben, is this all right with you?” “Sure, Andrew, that’s all right with me.”Yet it is true to say that real artists are magpies. They must be. There are no hard and fast rules for this kind of stuff, but we do live in a world where “sampling” is easier and easier to do.

One person’s opportunity is another’s dilemma; but that was true in Shakespeare’s time too, I imagine.

Motion’s “found poem”, An Equal Voice, is a fine poem: Ben Shephard’s A War of Nerves is a fine book. That this misunderstanding should have arisen between the two men, when both surely wish only to benefit those who have suffered in war, is simply a shame.

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