After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Julie Weiss, a poet living in Spain, wrote “Pink Bunny” to express her sorrow, shock, and fear of a wider European conflict and how it might affect her two children. Her poem was published in One Art in April 2022. Nearly two years later, on January 21, Weiss was devastated to learn that “Pink Bunny” had been plagiarized in its entirety by someone going by the name John Kucera and published in the literary magazine Topical Poetry under the title “Explosion.” Soon after, she learned that “Explosion” had also been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal and was scheduled to be published by a third journal before it was discovered that the work had been plagiarized.
“Through his two-second copy and paste, Kucera hijacked my…
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Poets & Writers (Digital) - 1 Issue, May/June 2024