[Matt Q]

Mark,

Sorry, if that wasn't clear, I was trying to avoid going through quoting and responding that way. Perhaps that was a mistake.

To clarify (I hope!) I was replying to the following in your post:

"First, how would the editors know the ethnic identity of the person submitting the poem?"

I was trying to show that editors don't need to know the ethnic or other identity in order to exhibit a bias. I'd be interested to know if you agree.

"Don’t editors choose poetry based on its quality, first and foremost?"

I was trying to point out that even if they did, the notion of "quality" is not necessarily independent of the editor's education and life experience. Even if they pick what for them is the best poetry, doesn't mean that this won't skew their choices.

"Talking about class gets me onto the broader notion of ‘identity’ and the idea that a writer can ‘speak for’ a whole identity. I’m suspicious of the whole thing."

I agreed that a writer can't speak for a whole identity. I was assuming that you were connecting this the question of representation at the level of poets and editor. So I was qualifying my agreement by trying to point out that this, in itself, is not a reason not to have 'representatives' of those groups; I tried to say why I thought that it was still a good idea to have them even though they don't "speak for" or wholly represent the groups they're members of.

"So. I should really like the esteemed popular English playwright Willy Russell shouldn’t I? Of Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine and Our Day Out fame? He’s Northern (born in Lancashire, same as me), white working-class, largely self-taught in literary terms, he was a teacher in a working-class comprehensive school and writes about people wanting to better themselves and escape from their cultural deprivation. Why, he’s me! He’s my people! Yeah, well, I don’t like him."

So here, you suggest and discount the idea that people should like they're like and disagree with it. The Larkin poem spoke to you although he was a different social class from you. Again, I was agreeing but also trying to point out what doesn't follow from agreeing with this. Again I was connecting this -- probably not very clearly -- to the idea of representation in magazines of poets and editors.

Finally, I'm definitely not suggesting that all poetry editors are white, male, upperclass etc. It's a hypothetical situation I'm suggesting -- a thought experiment -- to show that it does matter a) who the editors are and b) who the poets are in terms of their social background, ethnicity etc. This was in response to you seeming to suggest that a) that editors choose the best poems irrespective of their own and the poets' identities, and b) there's a universality to poems that transcends race, class, gender etc.

Ah, well, maybe I should have spent less time writing it. It probably would have been clearer then!

best,

Matt