Re the comments above - including Germaine Greer's - about inferior work by neglected women poets, it is vital to realise that many poets improve by having their work published, read and discussed. Feedback like that adds to the work in hand and grows a career.
Many women still have a hard time - and had especial difficulties in the past, as we know - getting published to the same extent as men, being adequately represented in anthologies where their work can be discovered by new readers, being reviewed, critically discussed etc.
This could impede their ability to see themselves as bona fide writers, thus stunting their confidence to develop and change, and it prevents their coming into contact with the kind of praise/appraisal that would allow them to grow and experiment as creative artists. That won't apply to everyone, because some poets are more naturally confident than others, but it is worth considering when a neglected poet's work is being dismissed as 'inferior'.
After all, isn't that the very reason for Eratosphere's existence? To provide poets with a readership and necessary feedback for future development?
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