Quote:
Originally Posted by Laura Heidy-Halberstein
Kate, how about Umbrella? Have you ever done a count of submissions based on sex? (And I don't mean to put you on the spot - it's just that it's an interesting question and seems to be a great way to start getting down to identifying the problem as it exists and not just as it's being perceived.)
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I haven't done an official count but
Umbrella gets
lot of subs from women. My participation in the WOMPO and Formalista listserves would probably explain that. Men do participate in those listserves but they are designed as discussion fora for women's poetry.
I select the best poems I get without regard to gender. For one issue, acceptances were so highly skewed toward males that I did made an effort to solicit more work from women, though. You have to
notice gender skews in order to rectify them. I do believe that one of Eve's central points is that male editors and anthology compilers don't even give the matter a thought.
Personally I'm more interested in the anthology situation. Periodicals operate differently, grinding things out, by month or by quarter, many dependent almost solely on whatever comes in and perhaps they
do get more male submitters; it is likely. Anthology editors are declaring the contents canonical or at least representative of something. I'm sorry, but if an anthology's purview is, say, "Best New Poets of Oshkosh," and women poets are represented to the tune of 30%, I suspect something rotten not in Oshkosh but in the editors' process.
I find a lot things woeful in po biz, though, not just, and not mostly, gender discrimination. All the foetry and "insider trading" and MFA mutual back scratching. A thread in this thread concerns social class; have enough money to go to the chi-chi universities and buy your MFA, and your opportunities are manifold. If anything,
Umbrella was launched in an effort to level
that playing field and this is spelled out in the mission statement. I'll take good work from whomever sends it ... but I am
delighted when it's sent by non-academics and non-MFA holders.