A winning poem in the 2019 Spokesman-Review high school writing contest was plagiarized.

A winning poem in the 2019 Spokesman-Review high school writing contest was plagiarized.

The third-place poem “Wolves” was actually written by Lindsey Rodgers in 2015 and went viral on Twitter when she posted it in 2018. Rodgers lives in Florida. She originally wrote the poem using a magnet poetry set. It was written based on the one-word prompt “werewolves.”

Since it went viral, she’s seen the poem appear in many places, including as lyrics in songs.

Rodgers said seeing her work stolen was painful.

“I don’t ask to be lauded or celebrated or anything like that, only recognized for the work that I did,” she said in an email. “And it hurt tremendously to see that someone had so carelessly taken it away from me to be used for her own personal gain. If I’m being honest, it’s made me extremely wary to share my work casually in a public forum ever again.”

The original poem submitted by the high school student has been taken offline. The student, in addition to their teacher and parents, have been notified. A properly attributed version has been posted and can be read here.