Reading poetry and its paratexts for evidence of fair dealing

The present essay discusses several extensively intertextual poetry books published in Canada in order to advance a method for reading poetry books’ front and end matter — the acknowledgement of permissions and citation of sources known as paratext — as de facto evidence of fair dealing in literary publishing. The point of this argument is not only to illuminate how publishers’ private enterprise relies on a copyright provision they publicly criticize, but also, more importantly, to promote a more widespread recognition and vigorous exercise of fair dealing as a right important to creators and consumers alike, as a vital instrument for cultural production and expressive freedom.