Today on My Poetic Side, we look at the TikTok accusations of poetry plagiarism and the exhibition of Sadi’s work in Tehran.

Hottest Gen Z Poet on TikTok Accused of Plagiarism

If you have ever explored the world of poetry on TikTok then there is a good chance that you have happened across Alizia Grace and her poetry. The 19 year old, from West Virginia has over 600,000 followed on poetry and has already published 16 poetry books on Amazon. These books include a coffee table book which includes lyrics and quotes by Lana Del Rey and a coffee table book.

Her poetry offers many similar themes, looking at young love, heartbreak and disillusionment at relationships. Her poetry is internet friendly and broody, and all of her poems follow a similar format. Every video that she posts of her poetry shows one of her books open at a random poem and with a backdrop of a pearly white crushed cloth. Consistency like this isn’t the TikTok norm where most creators have to change up their content in order to gain the clicks they need.

Her poems are praised by her TikTok followers and those who review her work on Goodreads and Amazon. There is one problem though, for many people her poetry bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Atticus, Rupi Kaur, and R.M. Drake. And much like Kaur who came in for significant criticism online, so too has Grace, with plenty of Twitter users posting unpleasant comments about her poems. Unfortunately the criticism is not limited to online followers. Fellow poet Sabrina Laura has a 65 tweet long viral thread on which she has chronicled every poem that she believes Grace has plagiarised, with pictures of the same work from the person who originally created it – including some of her own work.

The thread has been shared almost 3000 times and has over 6500 likes. Some of the most recently copied poems were revealed as recently as February 2023. Grace has been blocking those who have accusing her of plagiarism on multiple platforms rather than addressing the growing issue. This has left the injured parties no other option but to contact TikTok and Amazon directly to show them the similarities and in some cases have the plagiarised work removed. The problem is that the poems keep reappearing and taking things down the legal route seems to be difficult because tracing a physical address or way of contacting Grace seems to be very tricky.

Bustan Manuscripts go on Display at Golestan Palace

A collection of rare manuscripts of Bustan (The Orchard) the masterpiece of Sadi have gone on display in Tehran at the Golestan Palace.

The display include five manuscripts, one of which is from the 16^th century and was written by Mir Ali Soltan. This manuscript features a total of five miniatures. There is also a total of 14 calligraphic paintings of the poet’s work on display as part of the exhibition.

Abu-Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi, often referred to by the pen name Sadi, was a significant Persian poet from the medieval period. His work is still highly popular today.