View Single Post
  #3  
Unread 06-05-2009, 07:37 PM
Richard Epstein Richard Epstein is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Denver
Posts: 317
Default

When I see forums devoted to poems by and about women or by and about people of color or by and about gay poets, my reaction is always pretty much the same: How would you feel if you encountered a forum called Poems by Men, White Poets, or Heterosexual Poets? If your answer is, I'd be offended (or outraged), I think you got some 'splainin' to do. It's wrong, or perhaps merely silly, to pigeonhole poets by gender, color, sexual preference, height, weight, or facial hair; and this doesn't change just because you take the side of the minority presence (even if that is what women are, a somewhat dubious proposition). Some one of the places I read posts a link to Women Formalist Poets, and I never notice that w/o wondering how much indignation would be ginned up over a site called Male Formalist Poets and why such a site would be either better or worse.

RHE