The earlier books I cited are, yes, older, but I had included them as new editions, all post-enlightened 1960's.
And what are meant to say about the figures for editors of these books themselves, even worse than the figures of women included, running right up to present day?
I'm uncomfortable about being put in defensive position of having to look at merits of women included or not included, as surely one could do the same with the male poets. I could name one or two, and then we'd end up arguing her merits, as of course we needn't with male poets. Unless of course we're back to the old truism that there are simply far greater numbers of quality male poets, which I don't buy. Indeed, I often find the mediocrities or demerits of said poets are more over overlooked.
If you're familiar with the leading women poets in my anthology and in other women's anthologies which we shouldn't need to represent full breadth of canon, why not say yourselves why these aren't there? Another point I made in Introduction was that it slowly dawned on me that editors and publishers, here especially, were making their decisions about canon without KNOWING truly a lot of these women poets' work, and were instead operating on received ideas: a self-perpetuating closed club. Which is precisely the problem.
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