Soon after publishing issue #31, one of our chapbook winners noticed the name of John Kucera in its table of contents, and he brought to my attention that this particular poet was exposed as a serial plagiarist by a different publisher (see https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2024/01/john-kucera-exposed-as-serial-plagiarist.html). Upon further investigation, using a plagiarism checker called papersowl.com, he was able to identify the author and, reaching out to her, confirmed the theft of the poem from a work called The Wild in You: Voices from the Forest and the Sea (David Suzuki Institute, 2015) by Lorna Crozier.
Further research shows that Kucera published the same poem in a different venue: https://w.scars.tv/cgi-bin/works_e.pl?/home/users/web/b929/us.scars/perl/text-writings/g119965.txt.
The venerated Poets and Writers magazine also published an article by Emma Karina Elias exposing Kucera’s shenanigans in their May/June 2024 issue as well: https://www.pw.org/content/lit_mags_confront_a_serial_plagiarist. This article speculates about Kucera’s motivations:
“Many theories have been asserted about Kucera’s motives. Some suggest the person might have a mental health condition, while others believe Kucera is after financial gain, especially since work under that byline has been submitted to paying publications. But One Art and other journals Kucera queried or published in do not pay contributors.”
As probably one of the smallest of small press poetry publishers, Albatross always only paid contributors in copies (and did so for its first 30 issues) and stopped even this with the publication of issue #31, the most recent issue, which for the first time in our almost 40-year history of publishing (for various reasons) is published only in electronic (PDF) form. So we are among the targets of Kucera’s criminal behavior that provide no material benefit. The question of his motivation, therefore, remains a mystery to me. I remain baffled by what one could gain from such serial plagiarism. As a published poet myself, I personally have only earned contributor’s copies, except for one poem I published in Tampa Review, for which I was paid a whopping $10! The other story I like to tell about this issue of compensation for poetry regards some poems submitted by Duane Locke early in our history. I accepted a few, and he informed me that the ones I rejected he submitted to The American Poetry Review (a much more prominent publication) and earned a dollar per line for (for a total of $300) – a lot of money, but not enough to live on, that’s for sure!
The Elias article speaks of the “honor system” that exists between poets and publishers:
“Perhaps the greatest offense a writer can commit is to steal the work of a fellow writer and present it as their own. The taboo is so ingrained in the psyche of scribes that many of the literary magazines and presses to which writers submit operate on an honor system, Danowsky [editor in chief of the poetry journal One Art, the journal, featured in the article, in which Kucera had plagiarized a different poem] says. One Art’s submission guidelines, for example, state that the journal will not take previously published work, but it doesn’t mention plagiarism or require a signed contract. ‘I see it as something of a handshake agreement,’ Danowsky says.”
We certainly rely upon this honor system and do not have the time, interest, or capacity in checking every submission in this way, though the article suggests that it is the responsibility of the publisher to do so. What do you think? How can publishers fight such rogue actors? Are they ultimately responsible for confirming the originality of a writer’s work?
Albatross Poetry Journal 