Hi everyone,
Since I don't have the math skills to compile stats, and I'm too new to have seen less measurable trends, I'll just bring up something Wendy said in another thread (but don't let this derail the other conversation if there's more to be said!):
"I'd have bet dollars to donuts that Carthage and Cassandra were written by females....which is not a slight to anyone's masculinity or anything."
Personally, I'm pretty happy about this! I've considered abbreviating my first and middle initials for the very same reason (i.e. not to be like Eliot, though I could think of worse folks to be compared with
). I'm not too proud to show how green my horns are when I say that, before I learned a little bit about her, I didn't know Stallings is a woman. I thought, "A. E. Stallings...hmm, good stuff."***
I think I've written poems that would suggest I'm male (and maybe Alicia has written poems that clearly indicate she's female, though you all would know better than I do!), but there is something fascinating about the voice a poem assumes. I wrote "Carthage" as man dealing with First Massive Heartbreak, but I'm pleased to know that it does more than speak to my personal experience alone.
All that said, I do wonder about the absence of women. TDE can get pretty vicious, and I know the women can hold their own there. But maybe they wisely watch as the men beat the Bejaysus out of each other to no end. It's certainly not a question of ability. Sloughing eons of mistreatment may not be as simple as voting laws would make it seem.
Nick
***edit: Before I read Hapax, I'd seen her in journals.