I probably shouldn't get involved in this but prudence has never been my long suit. I'll start by saying that, IMHO, anyone who thinks I read Jennifer Reeser, Karen Solie and P.K. Page because they are women or A.M. Juster, Dennis Hammes and Charles Cornner because they aren't is insulting all seven of us.
I can't speak to the experience of the Print And "Real Life" ("PARL") bloggers since it is too foreign to the Webzine And Workshop ("WAW") environment that I prefer. (N.B.: I live so far from civilization that people here dream of honeymooning
in Fargo.) To me, the internet is a more "cards read" environment, less affected by regionalism, schools and Schools than the PARL milieu. I can't argue with the statistics that tell us that women submit less often to workshops and 'zines while being accepted at a rate comparable to men. My focus is on where the rubber meets the road: the audience. In the one and only poll I've seen on WAW poets, conducted a few years back, women swept the top four spots, along with 6th and 10th.
I checked the file of saved poems and links to poems that I've kept over the years and found a 2-to-1 ratio favouring women. I'd invite everyone here to do the same; the results might surprise some of us.
Quote:
Gail White wrote:
Personally, I've always felt I encountered more resistance as a formalist poet than as a female one.
|
Ain't that the truth! While it's a bit of a tangent, I suspect this trend will continue as long as metricists are identified as "formalist poets" while free-versers are, well, just "poets".
Here's an example of what I mean by the internet being a "cards read" environment: As recently as yesterday I heard news that one of the internet's most prominent verse-only websites (one that has published work by Annie Finch and more than a dozen other Eratospherans--including you, Gail!) is going to break from tradition and publish its first free-verse-only poet: a woman who has published a grand total of zero poems. Why? Because the featured piece, which I've read, is the kind of free verse poem that you pull out of your ass pocket (along with Maz's "Studying Savonarola", of course) and recite whenever a metricist mentions tennis nets. Here's the thing, though: the woman is so shy and modest that it never occurred to her to submit her poem anywhere, let alone to this particular venue. Someone who had seen the poem on Gazebo
four years ago had to track her down and twist her arm to get her to send it in--this, despite the glowing reviews it received there. (Days after posting her masterpiece the woman left the poetry world to pursue a college degree.) Anecdotal? Sure, but I have to wonder how common this bashfulness is, especially among female poets.
I suspect that women dominating--yes, dominating--internet poetry where it counts (i.e. with readers) will continue as long as intrinsic merit is the criterion on the consumer side and as long as they produce innovative work like this:
Lost Generation by metroamv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA
Best regards,
Colin W.