I found myself conducting negotiations in French, tracking down three different people who got together and wrote a song 30 years ago. Securing the rights from nearly 80 poets and novelists took over two years - longer than writing the book itself. But I didn’t really grasp the reality until I found myself tumbling along, working on my last book, which uses literature to explain addiction and recovery. I knew this intellectually, the way you know that falling down a rocky embankment would hurt. But if you want to adorn your work with, say, a few lines of Mary Oliver’s about wild geese, you have to track her down - or her estate, now - get permission, and pay. You can print almost any sentiment that originates in the smithy of your own soul. There is no First Amendment when it comes to poetry.
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