[Janice D. Soderling]

A friend of mine brought this Guardian article to my attention. It concerns a poetry thief who won the Exmoor prize with a plagiarized poem.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/14/poetry-competition-winner-plagiarist?commentpage=2#start-of-comments

http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Copycat-poet-s-apology-admitting-prize-winning/story-17853068-detail/story.html

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Poet-Christian-Ward-says-m-sorry-prize-winning/story-17838451-detail/story.html

CWs comment

Ward has now issued a statement to the Western Morning News about the "allegations of plagiarism" in the competition. He said he was "working on a poem about my childhood experiences in Exmoor and was careless", and that he "used Helen Mort's poem as a model for my own but rushed and ended up submitting a draft that wasn't entirely my own work".

"I had no intention of deliberately plagiarising her work. That is the truth," wrote Ward in his statement. "I am sorry this has happened and am making amends. This incident is all my fault and I fully accept the consequences of my actions. I apologise to the Exmoor Society, Helen Mort, the poetry community and to the readers of the WMN."

The poet, who described himself as a 31-year-old London poet in a (currently deleted) Write Out Loud profile, said he was now examining his published poems "to make sure there are no similar mistakes".

"I want to be as honest as I can with the poetry community and I know it will take some time to regain their trust," he wrote. "Already I have discovered a 2009 poem called The Neighbouris very similar to Tim Dooley's After Neruda and admit that a mistake has been made. I am still digging and want a fresh start. I am deeply sorry and look forward to regaining your trust in me."

I notice that CW in his Wikipedia page (which I suppose is written by him) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Ward has chosen to take the bull by the horns and made the following statement.

Born in 1980, Christian Ward holds an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. His poetry has been published in journals such as The Kenyon Review, Poetry Review,[1] Magma, Iota [2] and Poetry Wales. He has translated a number of poets, including Amado Nervo and Charles Baudelaire. A prize winning poet, his accolades include being nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice, winning the 2010 East Riding Open Poetry Competition [3] and short listed for the 2012 Jane Martin Poetry Prize.

In early 2013, Ward became the subject of a controversy over plagiarism, after it was noted that one of his prize-winning poems was extremely similar to one of Helen Mort's.[4] Ward admitted the similarities and apologised, but said he 'had no intention of deliberately plagiarising' Mort's work.[5]

Is it permissible to use the word bald-faced.

Young Ward has consistently passed off poems and translations as his own work. When he snitched one of my translations a few years ago I did a little Google detective work.

(to be continued)