Christian Ward

Ward's poetry has been published in journals such as the Kenyon Review, Poetry Review,[1] and Iota.[2] He has translated a number of poets, including Amado Nervo and Charles Baudelaire. He won the 2010 East Riding Open Poetry Competition.[3]

In January 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 said that he 'had no intention of deliberately plagiarising' Mort's work though the poem was almost identical, with only two or three words changed in the body of the poem, and one in the title.[4]

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." [5]

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." [6]

In July 2013, the online journal Sixth Finch removed a poem which had initially been attributed to Ward, stating: "In our Spring 2009 issue, we published a poem entitled “Karenia Brevis” and attributed that poem to Christian Ward, who submitted the poem as his own work. It recently came to our attention that the poem was plagiarized—apart from minor changes in phrasing, it was a poem entitled “Remembering Karenia Brevis” by Jeffrey Harrison. Harrison's poem, which appeared in Chautauqua Review and The Warwich Review, will be included in his next book, What Comes Next, forthcoming from Tupelo Press. We have removed the poem from our site, and we regret our error." [7]