Plagiarism In The Poetry World

rugcat · May 23, 2013

Publishers and magazines have been working to take down poems and suspend sales of collections by David R Morgan after the American poet Charles O Hartman realised Morgan's poem "Dead Wife Singing" was almost identical to his own, three-decades-old "A Little Song".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/22/plagiarism-scandal-poetry

It's not just one poem -- it's hundreds, over the years.

Interestingly, Mr. Morgan swiped quite a bit of stuff from the F/SF world, specifically poems published in Strange Horizons

I guess he figured, "Who reads that stuff anyway?"

A lot of people apparently, though he got away with it for years. Maybe not a whole lot of people read his stuff.

It was a lot easier to get away with this kind of plagiarism pre-internet.

bearilou · May 24, 2013

Wow. How...very sad.

I wish I could understand what goes through a plagiarist's mind. I guess the gut-twisting anxiety starts to go away the longer it goes unnoticed.

Torgo · May 24, 2013

bearilou said:
Wow. How...very sad.

I wish I could understand what goes through a plagiarist's mind. I guess the gut-twisting anxiety starts to go away the longer it goes unnoticed.

I think they get addicted to it.

shaldna · May 24, 2013

i think some people just don't care.

At the moment Caroll Bryant has a poem published on his website that contains Phil Collins lyrics. Wonder if Phil knows?

Plagiarism In The Poetry World

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

bearilou

DenturePunk writer

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.