Logan's response (on Facebook) to Bialosky's response:

"The eight common excuses for plagiarism:

(1) Everyone does it.
(2) It’s not really plagiarism.
(3) The plagiarisms are slight or irrelevant.
(4) I took notes from various sources and forgot the prose wasn’t mine.
(5) Quotation marks were removed by accident during editing.
(6) The passages in question are only a very small part of the book.
(7) It’s someone else’s fault.
(8) The critic who called attention to these things is the real problem."

John Cage comes to mind.

In New York City the Center for Fiction is pumping Bialosky first post-scandal appearance as if nothing had happened. In fact, they're calling her book "entirely original." If you want to go, it's free, but you have to register here:

http://www.centerforfiction.org/cale...-will-schwalbe

Either you posted that exactly one minute too soon, or you didn't look at the page closely enough:

"*We're sorry for the inconvenience, but this event has been cancelled."

People--justly--lose careers for things half as egregious as this. This is frustrating, but not surprising.

What stupified me years ago (and it does even more now) is how it continued to be true that the titular editor for Norton could seem so blank to me. I'm a nice guy, given half a chance, but empathy and kind thoughts can only go so far. Even the Athenians who chose government officials at random by drawing straws (so to speak) didn't generally get that radically silly with serious things like the military. Poetry must not count as serious to Norton on some level beyond monetization via textbook, or maybe there are things unseen there and things never to be known.

Publishing poetry by major houses seems to be largely a matter of prestige and awards. Most collections of poetry, I suspect, don't make the publisher a lot of money. A few "house poets" manage to sell pretty well on a consistent basis. Mary Oliver is one, as is Billy Collins, and I guess Ashbery was another.

Here's a link to the current Norton poetry list. For obvious reasons, the anthologies take prominence:

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/subj... aram=SortDate

I should add that there are quite a few books I've enjoyed on this list and that I post it for informational purposes only.

I had looked at the material several times, but didn't see the cancellation sentence the last time. Apologies.

Yes, I am offended by the obvious plagiarism but I am more offended by the cliches and emetic prose style.

After I get enough published on Catullus, the Chaucer and Homer might be interesting. But a flip-through of either at a university bookstore might sate that curiosity.