Acclaimed poet disputes allegations of lifted material

NEW YORK — An acclaimed poet and editor says she will correct any errors in her current book after a critic alleged she had improperly lifted material.

Jill Bialosky said in a statement Thursday that she had “inadvertently’’ used “fragments’’ from “common biographical sources’’ for her memoir “Poetry Will Save Your Life.’’

On Wednesday, William Logan alleged in a post on the Tourniquet Review that Bialosky took passages from Wikipedia and other websites without crediting them. One example showed a close resemblance between a section in her book on the poet Robert Lowell and an excerpt from Lowell’s Wikipedia page.

“William Logan has extracted a few ancillary and limited phrases from my 222-page memoir that inadvertently include fragments of prior common biographical sources and tropes after a multiyear writing process,’’ Bialosky said in a statement released through her publisher, Atria Books. “This should not distract from the thesis of this book, which derives from my own life, my experiences and observations. I will, of course, correct any errors that are found for future editions of the book.’’ Atria itself issued a statement defending the book and saying any errors would be fixed.