[David Anthony]

But where's the fun in that, Janice?

[Janice D. Soderling]

We were not put on this earth, this Sphere, to have fun, David. We were put here to suffer and write poetry about it..

[Wintaka]

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.

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.

[Kate Benedict]

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.)

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.

[Shaun J. Russell]

That's a great anecdote Colin, and I think it IS indicative of part of the reason for fewer women submitters, at least.

If there's anything I want to emphasize in this thread it's that the current situation is not comprised of one single thing: men subjugating women. I think there are still situations where that occurs, but until someone starts pointing out a number of incidents where mediocre male poets were included at the expense of better female poets, I'm inclined to believe that there are other factors in the lower rate of female publications than an unspoken conspiracy by a powerful boys' club with a vendetta against equal rights for female wordsmiths...

[peter richards]

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

We were not put on this earth, this Sphere, to have fun, David. We were put here to suffer and write poetry about it..

It is not to have fun that we are put on this sphere,
the composition of poetry is why we are here.
Neither may we hark to winsome, wilder times;
this rubbish responds to meter, and rhymes...

There, wasn't that fun?

E. Jarvis Ayers-Thribb (17)

[Michael Cantor]

I took a look at two contemporary antholgies which I keep near my desk for reference purposes - Twentieth Century American Poetry by David Mason, Dana Goia and Meg Schoerke; and Sam Gwynn's Poetry: A Pocket Anthology (Third Edition). Clearly, if you go back to the first half of the century, male poets predominated. But what happens if you look at poets active more recently - the last thirty or forty years or so? Arbitrarily, I chose poets born in 1936 (my own birth year) or later, and added up the numbers:

Twentieth Century: 33 male poets/29 female. (But, if I change the cutoff to 1941, the ration changes to 23 male/26 female.)

Pocket Anthology: 31 male/25 women for 1936. 23 male/18 women for 1941.

Only two anthologies, and possibly reflecting enlightened editors, but the Cantor Bookshelf Survey doesn't indicate a significant problem with contemporary poets. Nor does the Sphere and Gazebo Submission Study I cited earlier.

[Roger Slater]

That's odd, Michael. I suppose Mark will now tell us that we should accept the biological and psychological reality that men and women TEND (he does not say this is invariably the case, only a tendency, mind you) to be similar in talent and disposition.

[Terese Coe]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

No, Lo, of course no one alive today is responsible for slavery or for having denied women the right to vote. Perhaps I was too flip in the way I expressed myself for my point to register. You asked why white male heterosexuals do not have their own magazines, and I was simply pointing out that white male heterosexuals have inherited a legacy of relative privilege, while other groups have inherited a legacy of discrimination. Though no one alive created slavery in the nineteenth century, or deferred the female franchise until the twentieth century, the particular issues and challenges confronting these groups did not disappear with their respective constitutional amendments ending the most glaring and obvious legal affronts to their dignity and their freedom.

Hear, hear!

There are so many extant sub rosa ways of discriminating against almost anyone that it's impossible to discuss them all. But the glaring fact remains that women and minorities do not now and perhaps never will have the number and variety of opportunities open to white heterosexual males, and the affronts against equal opportunity extend not only into the distant past but through most worldwide cultures today. Male and female editors are affected by these facts in ways they're not always aware of.

To Kate, Bob, and Eva: Your posts have been valiant. Thank you. I wouldn't say that the Eratosphere poetry workshops have always been level playing fields re gender, but other old-timers and I have sometimes noted that the workshops here have improved as such over the last few years. The presence of men like Bob and Quincy has helped immeasurably. Thanks to those two men especially for their compassionate responses here. (And sorry if I've missed mentioning others, as the thread is more than a little chaotic.)

[Mary Meriam]

Michael, I have a new book for you to add to your bookshelf (after you read it, of course):
Jill Johnston's Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (1973).