That's it! Blame the English Professors! :D

By the way, what's a vo-vo? :confused: I'm so out of it...

Thanks,

Bill

Iced Vo-Vo, per Wikipedia

I understand these arguments, both intellectually and historically; I simply don't find them convincing. The premise seems to be that those discriminated against by exclusionary categories of race, gender, or sexual preference should themselves discriminate and exclude on the basis of race, gender, or sexual preference. Calling discrimination compensatory doesn't make it less discriminatory.

It seems to me that real justice for, say, women poets would be achieved by an editor not discriminating on the basis of gender, taking the very best of what was submitted, and discovering that when this occurred, women were published at least as often as men. Parity achieved by practicing the mirror image of hateful policies is sort of a bogus parity.

RHE

Er, maybe. But what about Formal (form-friendly) Journals then? Doesn't the same argument apply? Isn't that a form of reverse discrimination or what have you to make up for the discrimination against form seen in many mainstream journals? Personally, I think they are a lot less necessary than they once were--and I'd encourage folks here to submit to mainstream journals as well--but thought I'd bring it up for the sake of argument.

If there is a readership/writership/subscribership for something (Formal, women's poetry, Asian poetry in translation, Flarf, what have you), why should it be a problem there is a journal for it?

I suppose because some differences--between formal and free verse, for example--are real and others are supposititious. When you know a poet is black (or white) (or puce), you know nothing whatsoever about the poem before you. After arguing that gender should be irrelevant in the marketplace--aesthetic as well as financial--an argument that special seating should be reserved for women (or men) seems designed to thwart its own purposes.

RHE

It's funny, Alicia -- that exact thought crossed my mind when I was writing one of my posts earlier in this thread.

At the end of the day, ALL journals are going to have "discrimination", in a sense, because every acceptance of a poem comes down to the discretion of an editor (or editorial panel). There will always be leanings, whether free or formal, male or female, confessional or political etc. etc. ad infinitum. I can't help but think that there is a different level of discrimination, though, when it's over something as basic and unimaginative as race or gender. Those are things that have little to do with the aesthetics of poetry, as Richard rightly points out.

Compared to the number of form-only journals out there, there are still a disproportionate number of form-unfriendly journals--- either explicitly so, or based on their practices. So, in that light form-only journal will continue to be relevant.

However, can the same argument be made of the other pigeonholed journals - women-only, gay-only, black-only, etc.? I'll say can anyone can name a men-only, straight-only, white-only... poetry journal?

...Alex

The idea of women's anthologies as "own-goals" - - self-defeating - was precisely what I felt needed addressing in Introduction I wrote for anthology Women's Work.

Apart from compiling the figures proving an ongoing imbalance, certainly shocking in the UK, I also began to realise how "women's writing", rather than being one of a number of specialties under a literary umbrella, was viewed as a special case.

Furthermore, in critical writing it is often assumed that women's issues are women's only subject. Notably, one book of criticism, in attempting a balance, includes a section about women writers...writing only about feminism, but never the wide range of subjects they do in fact write about. Of course there is never likewise chapter headings about men writing about men in the same way. Those chapters engage with men's writing about politics, the world, etc.

I could go on about this. In fact, I did, in this Introduction! Often, to raise these issues is to attract unbelievable vitriol (telling, of course) and the conversations often becomes more one about the legitimacy of the topic, and of course the legitimacy of those who find the topic important, in a neat invalidation of their experience. Not that this is happening here.

I think many people miss the point of minority-focused journals when they look at which writers are being excluded. Instead, perhaps they should focus on what such journals have to offer readers. For one thing, the assumption seems to be that the readers will probably be mainly from the specific minority focused on in the journal. It is not surprising that members of a minority group might be most interested in reading about the experiences and perspectives of members of their own minority, especially if they feel those are underrepresented in other journals. If I want to read about cooking, I turn to a cooking magazine, not to Time or Newsweek, even if they occasionally include an article about cooking. Perhaps white men already find their own experiences represented in many journals and don't feel a desire for a journal that focuses only on them. If minority-focused journals claimed to be presenting the best poetry anywhere, white men might be justified in objecting to being excluded. But they claim only to be presenting good poetry by members of a particular minority. Is there something wrong with that?

Susan

True, Susan, but most of this debate arises because the argument often given as the raison d'être for those specialty journals -- as in the article that prompted this thread -- is perceived injustice, not benefits.

...Alex