On Responsible Appropriation

Patricia,
It's all too easy to understand the fact that you felt violated by the uncredited appropriation of your poem by another person. You created it, most likely gave it away with an open heart, only later to find that you were written out of the equation. There is no justification for his actions. Copping another poet's words without it being part of a larger stated conceptual strategy is no good. And clearly, this kid's project was not an appropriation project. Ouch.
So your post brings up some good thinking points. As someone who doesn't "write" any words of his own, it makes me pause to wonder why some ways of framing language is fair game for lifting and others outright theft. Primarily, I think that it has to do with intention. If this student was exploring the appropriation of other poets' work as his articulated writing practice, I think his action would be justifiable. Patti, you would understand his actions in a different light, and perhaps even embrace them. But to try to pass it off as his own is silly -- even Romantic -- to my mind; it's morally and conceptually flawed.
I think that almost anything is justifiable if one's intention is stated up front. By the way, justifiable doesn't equal legal or moral rectitude, but on formal, conceptual, and aesthetic grounds, I'll accept it.