Christian Ward



Christian Ward (born 1980) is a British poet, writer, and translator recently at the center of several plagiarism scandals in which he is accused of claiming the poetry of other writers as his own. Several of these works were published under his name or earned him awards despite being the works of others (and often changed only by minor differences in word choice or line break). In recent months, several of these awards (including the Exmoor Society's Hope Bourne Prize and the Bridport Prize) have been retracted as the accusations of plagiarism surfaced. Several literary journals and publications, including Yale Journal for Humanities and Medicine, Kenyon Review, Monongahela Review and online magazine Redheaded Stepchild, have issued apologies for publishing his work and removed it from their archives.

Ward's first collection of poetry, The Moth House, is scheduled to be published in late 2013 by Valley Press. It is not known whether any of the plagiarised works were to be included in this collection.

Life
Ward holds an Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. His poetry, some of it copied from other published poets, living and dead, has been (re)published in journals such as the Kenyon Review, Poetry Review, and Iota. He has translated a number of poets, including Amado Nervo and Charles Baudelaire.

Accusations of plagiarism
In early 2013, Ward became the subject of charges of plagiarism after it was noted that one of his prize-winning poems was extremely similar to one of Helen Mort's. Ward admitted the similarities and apologised, but lied that he 'had no intention of deliberately plagiarising' Mort's work. In February 2013, the Yale Journal for Humanities and Medicine also revealed that Christian Ward had plagiarized works of another author in their publication. In February 2013. Magma Poetry also apologised that they had published a poem by Ward entitled "Newton's First Law of Motion" but subsequently discovered that this poem was written, apart from a few minor changes of wording, by Matthew Olzmann, with the title "Sir Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion" and published in the Winter 2009/10 edition of New England Review (30/4).

In March 2013, the Monongahela Review announced on their website that "we have removed Christian Ward's poems from Issue 4 of the Monongahela Review. It is unfortunate that a choice was made to opt for plagiarism." Ward won "highly commended" in the 2011 Bridport Prize. The phrase "highly commended, poetry 2011" now has a strikethrough line next to his name on the Bridport Prize website and the note: "It has come to our attention that the poem, The Egret, which won a highly commended prize in 2011, is a direct copy of a poem published by the Australian poet, Debbie Lim, in 2009. An explanation for this has been asked of Christian Ward.  We have informed Debbie Lim and given our apologies."

The online magazine Redheaded Stepchild announced at the same time: "In the Spring 2009 issue of RSC, we published a poem titled "With Horse" submitted by Christian Ward. We've recently discovered that this poem was written by Kathryn Simmonds with the title "With Zebra" and published in La Petite Zine, lucky #13 issue (summer 2003). We regret publishing a plagiarized poem, which we accepted in good faith."

Recognition
He won the 2010 East Riding Open Poetry Competition and was short listed for the 2012 Jane Martin Poetry Prize.

Publications

 * 2013: The Moth House (poetry, publication pending)