Prisoners plagiarized poems

News from the UK:

The prisoners’ newspaper Inside Time has introduced strict checks on its poetry page because some contributors had copied out well-known poems and submitted them under their own names. . . .

The newspaper, which is published by a charity and distributed to jails across Britain, has warned its readers that each entry will now be vetted in a bid to flush out the cheats.

“We now check every poem selected before going to print,” the newspaper’s editors said in a warning printed in this month’s edition.

Among the items copied, in whole or in part: James Brown’s “King Heroin” and Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Prison poets caught in plagiarism bid (Telegraph)

Update: Geo-B offers a poem about plagiarized poems (it’s also in the comments):

Editor’s Lament

Whose words these are I think I know
He’s not from cell block seven though
I heard it might be Bobby Frost
Who’s doing time up on death row.

We’re publishing a prison mag
With poems and stories in the bag
It’s “Prose and Cons,” so aptly named
Yet this seems pilfered as a gag.

I’ve read it someplace else I think
But I have plenty time to do
And miles to go before I fink
And miles to go before I fink.