Fanstory Plagiarism Again

Hat tip: An anonymous observant little birdie.

I had intended to stop updating this blog and simply let it exist as a record of past events, particularly those relating to Tammy Gail Behnke and her Fanstory shenanigans. However, recent events have made me reconsider, and so I have decided to add this post.

First, a little background. Mark Behnke and Tammy Behnke were banned (*) from Fanstory about a year ago, but they have continued posting poems to the site under the username "Christopher Sheldon". The "Christopher Sheldon" account was originally set up with the username "Brian's Promise" and was used to post poetry written by Mr. Behnke's belated brother, Brian. The username attached to the account changed several times after Mr. and Mrs. Behnke were banned, but finally settled as "Christopher Sheldon". "Christopher Sheldon" claims to be a cousin to Mr. Behnke.

Why do I think that Mr. and Mrs. Behnke are using this account and that "Christopher Sheldon" is a badly-executed fiction to avoid the ban-hammer? Some of the poems posted by "Christopher" were also posted by Mr. and Mrs. Behnke to various other web sites (wherein he or she claimed authorship of the poems) and were later added to an updated version of Mr. Behnke's book, Metaphorical Thymes, on Amazon.

This evidence is sufficient to convince me that the pair are posting their own work on Fanstory under the "Christopher Sheldon" account. To be clear, I have never suspected Mr. Behnke of plagiarizing, only Mrs. Behnke. I've also read enough of both of their poetry to have a pretty good idea who wrote which poems.

Just recently, an observant little birdie emailed to tell me that three latest poems posted by "Christopher Sheldon" appeared to be plagiarized. The poems are written in what I consider to be Mrs. Behnke's style. In looking at the poems and verifying the research done by the little birdie, I found that "Christopher"'s poems are strikingly similar to poems previously posted at Deep Underground Poetry--Mrs. Benke's former poaching ground--by one of the poets that I believe that she had previously plagiarized. I had a short DM conversation with that other poet last year and can confirm that he is not Mr. or Mrs. Behnke going by a different username.

Below, I've compared the poems posted by "Christopher Sheldon" to the poems posted by the other poet, Dragonyear, so that readers can inspect the evidence and form their own opinion.

One thing to note is that all of Dragonyear's poems that appear to have been plagiarized from were posted late last year AFTER Mrs. Behnke had been banned from Fanstory. So the poems just recently posted to Fanstory could not be attributed to her mistakenly pulling old poems out of a file. These apparent plagiarisms are recent.

*****

On May 11, 2014, "Christopher Sheldon" posted a poem titled “electra” This poem appears to be plagiarized from a poem called “True” posted by Dragonyear at Deep Underground Poetry on October 19, 2013. Following are screenshots of both poems:

Specifically, note the similarity between the following lines and/or groups of lines:

electra: the morsel of my life forever out of reach
True: The pearl of my life / Forever out of reach

electra: curling assault races towards me … / always trying to press me to the dry mouth of land
True: Curling assault always trying to press me to the dry of land

electra: devouring me into the dream of my own creation / into a canvas of electra scattered skies
True: Carrying us both into the dream of our own creation / Into a canvas of star scattered skies

electra: releasing my body to the mercy of the complex
True: Releasing my body to the mercy of cutting blue waters

*****

On May 11, 2014, "Christopher Sheldon" posted a poem titled “comfortable like death”. This poem appears to be plagiarized from a poem called “How to Discern a Vampire” posted by Dragonyear at Deep Underground Poetry on October 18, 2013. Following are screenshots of both poems:

Specifically, note the similarity between the following lines and/or groups of lines:

comfortable: delivering the flesh rending / cruel slashing of a leather whip
Vampire: Delivering the flesh rending cruel bites of a leather whip

comfortable: internally bleeding brutal / like hot dish bubbles
Vampire: Internally bleeding brutal like hot bullets

comfortable: my hands around your throat / … / forcing you to remain submerged
Vampire: My hands are around your throat forcing you to remain submerged

comfortable: passive aggressive witchery / dominating with steel strings
Vampire: Passive aggressive witchery / Dominating with steel strings

comfortable: hooked from the lungs of lips / your nature is devilishly revealed
Vampire: hooked on the heart / …/ Your nature is revealed

*****

On May 12, 2014, "Christopher Sheldon" posted a poem titled “sight of shadows”.  This poem appears to be plagiarized from a poem called “First Glance” posted by Dragonyear at Deep Underground Poetry on September 29, 2013. Following are screenshots of both poems:

 Specifically, note the similarity between the following lines and/or groups of lines:

shadows: it only took one frozen second / containing the vision / of your trickery
First Glance: It only took one frozen second containing the vision of your likeness

shadows: setting my heart / in a zero-xanax-laden / flutter
First Glance: Setting my heart in flutter

shadows: a bird trying to fly / into a rib cage of steel
First Glance: A bird trying to fly in this rib cage

shadows: my mind spins in dizzy lashes
First Glance: My mind spins / In this dizzy stasis

shadows: drawing up impossible scenarios / creating a fated path / to where we could die
First Glance: Drawing up impossible scenerios / Creating a fated path to where we could meet

shadows: as if I did not know / already / that you are toxic / or that you have / anything to gain / from an electra vampire / at the mercy / of your tarnished beauty
First Glance: As if I did not know already that you are forbidden / Or that you have anything to gain from a sexual vampire / At the mercy of your sleek beauty

*****

So, dear readers, what do you think? Plagiarism?

My source told me that he reported the issue to Fanstory admin and has had zero response. Not even a, "Thanks, we'll look into it." A couple of days later "Christopher Sheldon" is still active and the poems remain.

*****

As always, if anyone disputes the accuracy of anything I have posted, please let me know why specifically and I'd be happy to consider it. Note that "specifically" does not mean, "You're a big meanie and this whole post is fraudulent". I'm looking at you, anonymous commenter from months ago...

(*) It is my belief that Mr. and Mrs. Behnke were banned, as opposed to leaving of their own accord, based upon comments made by Mr. Behnke and by another user who appears to be a sockpuppet. I do not have specific confirmation of that directly from site admin. Also, if they were not banned, they could use their original accounts to post works, instead of pretending to be another person.

Tammy Gail Behnke: Update #2

[Tammy Gail Behnke was the subject of two previous posts here and here.]

When Ms. Behnke and her husband were members at Fanstory, they talked often about Ms. Behnke's brother-in-law Brian who passed away about 15 years ago. He also wrote poetry, and one of his family members created an account at Fanstory and posted some of Brian's work. On December 14, 2012, Ms. Behnke's husband and his mother published a compilation of Brian's poetry via CreateSpace and Amazon. The book is called, "Request for a Normal Life: A Poet Waits".

Here's the problem. Ms. Behnke posted several of the poems--or portions of the poems-- from that book on Fanstory, claiming they were her own work. Here's what I have found so far:

On July 15, 2011, Ms. Behnke posted a poem called "For Peter Mark Roget". It appears to be identical to Brian's poem of the same name. I did not have a screenshot of Ms. Behnke's poem, so I had to recover the text of it in pieces from the Google cache.

   

Anarchist12 at Fanstory

Fanstory appears to have another plagiarist, or maybe one has already come and gone. More on the "come and gone" part of that later.

First the evidence. On December 18, 2012, Anarchist12 posted a poem called "winterscape".  Here is the poem with the line breaks omitted (emphasis is mine):

"draped in monochrome as far as spying eye black knives of fir thrust deep into the sky  white snow lapping at roots when the first sun slid through the woods jumping leaping from tree to tree rock to rock like a spreading flame  icy air and fathomless quiet  the landscape surged into magic endless surging spurry-like color"

And here is a passage from "The Secret Agent" by Francine Mathews. Again the emphasis is mine:

"She slipped away from Max...hoping the icy air and fathomless quiet would slap some sense into her skull. The world at this hour was monochrome: black knives of fir thrust deep into the sky, white snow lapping at their roots. When the first sun slid through the woods, jumping from tree to tree like a spreading flame, the landscape surged into color."

The poem makes use of identical phrases from the novel. The relevant passage from the book can be seen here. Screen shots of both the plagiarized poem and the passage are here:

Tammy Gail Behnke: Update #1

[Tammy Gail Behnke was the subject of a previous post.]

Ms. Behnke published a book on Createspace and Amazon on December 14, 2012, called "Golden Lotus: Remembrances of Sylvia Plath". The Amazon page currently shows the book as out of print. A number of the poems in the book appear to have been copied from other sources.

QUICK INDEX:

"unearthed", p 10 -- Source: "Twins Say Goodbye", Dragonyear, DUP

"spilling inside", p 15 -- Source "a complete history of sculpture" by aglitch, DUP

"compulsory confession", p 17-18 -- Source: "twenty one revolutions hit like skylight shrapnel", cultofstars, tumblr.com

"i opened myself today", p 19-20 - Source: "Wandering Without Destination", Dragonyear, DUP

"committed", p 40-41 -- Source: "Loch Ness", Dragonyear, DUP and TUS

"billet-doux", p 45 -- Source: "(yes, another love poem) selenophobia remedied", Mr A, DUP

"strings unknown", p 52 -- Source: "Quarter Inch Reveal" Dragonyer, DUP

"ink regime", p 59 -- Source: Heavily based on "Darker Than Black", Dragonyear, DUP

"breaking bread", p 60-61 -- Source: "Third Eye Triangle", Dragonyear, DUP

Tammy Gail Behnke at Fanstory

Tammy Gail Behnke has been a member of Fanstory since 2011. During 2012, she moved up through the ranks to become one of the more highly ranked poets on the site. The only problem? Many of the poems that she posted had been previously published on other sites--blogs, poetry workshops, in books, etc--by other people.

Now one could argue that she had multiple accounts at another site and that poems were really hers. However, included in the list of copied poems are those by a dead Romanian poet, two male bloggers, and Ms. Behnke's deceased brother-in-law (if you believe the claims posted on Fanstory by Ms. Behnke and a user claiming to be her husband Mark). I find it extremely unlikely that Ms. Behnke was all those other people, most especially the dead Romanian poet.

After she was reported to Fanstory site admin (several times), her and her husband's accounts both became in active. Her poems were either "deleted" or "removed from the public view", and therefore I was not able to get screenshots of all of the poems addressed in this blog. Generally the older the poem, the more likely it is to have a screenshot. Screenshots, with authors and posting dates, are available unless otherwise noted with [NSCA], which stands for "No Screen Shot Available".

Following the cut is a list in reverse chronological order of the poems that I am aware of that match poems previously published elsewhere. Warning. It's a doozy--55 poems and counting!