Writing: What is Original?

An Ilokano writer has posed the question: what is original? It must be understood that if we speak of creative writing, the end is a product, say a poem or a short story. that is new, and therefore, original. And this is no different from painting. Sometimes the product is not designed in the painter's mind. She or he takes the brush and starts painting. Suddenly, the canvass carries an image of something but the painting is not yet finished. Then the theme or topic or the complete representation of a thing, a view becomes clear. So is writing. The writer may have the pattern in his mind, some skeleton of the story or the poem then starts filling the spaces in the paper. W hat is original? Let us be blunt by citing the poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Only T.S. Eliot could write it. That could not have been authored by say, e.e. cummings whose signature poems include the following:" what if a much of a which of a wind"; "pity this monster, manunkind," which he only could create.Writing is not copying the work--a poem, novel--of another person.The product of the imagination of a person is unique unto itself given his or her own experience, perspective and other considerations.