[Matt Q]

Hi Mark,

Good to see you back. So this is in response to your post #31.

So, how do editors "know"? While gender is sometimes, but not always, attributable from a name, surnames clearly aren't the best predictors of ethnicity, and even photos, if provided, don't always help: Is that person white or is it a tan? Sexuality is even harder to guess.

All of that said, the content/theme of the poems is sometimes going be a big clue. If you Jee Leong Koh's poetry, say, you won't be left in any doubt about his sexuality. So, even if you only discriminated by theme only, you'd manage to skew representation to a degree. Clearly, disabled poets don't necessarily always write about disability, say, but poets writing about disability are much more likely to be disabled.

However, the argument for systematic exclusion doesn't really require that editors are consciously choosing to discount poets or themes on the grounds of race, class, sexuality, gender, (dis)ability etc. All you'd need to accept is that, if you get, say, a bunch of upper-class, oxbridge-educated, heterosexual, white men, then on average they're prone to have a subset of life experiences, beliefs, tastes and interests that will influence/skew their choice of poetry even when reading it 'blind' and this in turn will skew the demographic of poets they choose to publish. Even if, as you suggest, they only aim to choose what they consider "excellent" poetry.

Which is a bit like saying, when it's film night, if you only let the heterosexual men choose the films they want to see, you'll likely get a different set of films chosen, on average, than if they're chosen by a different sub-group. Or maybe, it's like saying, if you get a bunch of rich, expensively schooled (and traumatised by being separated from their parents at age 8), Oxbridge graduates together and put them in government, their limited life-experience may lead them to introduce social policies that fuck over the poor without any real understanding of the consequences of their actions. A purely hypothetical, example this last one.

I don't imagine anyone is suggesting that we should, or do, prefer or relate to only what is produced by those in analogous situations to our own. Clearly, as human beings, we have a fair bit in common despite our differences. We do also have differences, and we can benefit from and often enjoy reading about experiences other than our own. There are also situations in which we would like to hear others illuminate experiences related to our own. I'm generally interested to read poems about the experience of psychosis, or psychiatric hospitals, say. All of the above, though, seems like an argument for diversity.

I also don't think that one member of a group can or should be expected to fully or accurately represent the group they are a member of. Though, I also don't know that that would be an argument for having no representatives from said group. A solitary black member of the editorial staff can't represent all black people, let alone all non-white people, and probably will quickly get fed up of being expected to if that's their role. But would we expect an all-white staff do a better job of this? A couple of black poets in a magazine issue won't speak for all black readers, but having none, surely, is likely to have the magazine speak for/to them even less. Also, I don't know that it's so much the poets job to speak for or represent the reader. Personally, I'd be happy to see a poem addressing schizophrenia (not my diagnosis) in which the N has a very different experience and view of mental illness than me. It wouldn't represent me or speak for me so much, but it's likely to speak to me.

I guess one way to look at all this is to consider the claim that it'd be absolutely fine for all decisions about what gets published to be taken by straight, white, financially stable, able-bodied, neurotypical, Oxbridge-educated men, because they'd choose based on excellence only and their take on excellence would be an objective measure. Or, that all the poems ever published could be written by straight, white, financially stable, able-bodied, neurotypical, Oxbridge-educated men, and all readers will be perfectly catered to and nobody's experience of the world would be excluded, since all good poems reference a universal human experience. Both seem obviously false to me.

Questions about how diversity is measured, what constitutes enough, whether that's been achieved already, and if not, what corrective measures would be useful, are a different matter. If you think the situation is fine now, that's great. But I'd be interested to know what you are that basing that on. Just as I'm interested to know what claims to the contrary are based on. The absence of solid statistics on who submits -- as opposed to who gets chosen -- definitely makes it hard to establish definitively what's going on.

-Matt

[Erik Olson]

What was inspired by a scopeless tract
is now become as vague and weakly backed;
like meats through rank digestion, so each claim
passed through the thread no longer is the same.
The lack of rigor, proof, courts points gone wild
loose as constructs like these allowed and piled:

These days there is a lot of angry noise about identity and “identity politics.” From some perspectives, it’s a misguided tide of righteousness that has destroyed our ability to see each other as individuals, only as adherents of groups with greater or lesser moral capital. From others, it’s a fundamental cry for justice in a world that has clubbed us with smug assumptions.

Some groups count moral chips by loud bullhorn;
some think our ties beyond our group have torn—
both camps are ill-outlined, too black and white,
nor would they ban a fictive thing you write.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for responding to #31. Lots of interesting points, though it sometimes feels a little like you're responding to a version of it that I don't really recognise. But just a couple of things, because I'm flagging now:

I also don't think that one member of a group can or should be expected to fully or accurately represent the group they are a member of. Though, I also don't know that that would be an argument for having no representatives from said group.

Neither do I! I'm sure you're not suggesting that I argued for, or even hinted at such a thing, but it sounds a little like you are.

And these characterisations:

All you'd need to accept is that, if you get, say, a bunch of upper-class, oxbridge-educated, heterosexual, white men, then on average they're prone to have a subset of life experiences, beliefs, tastes and interests that will influence/skew their choice of poetry even when reading it 'blind' and this in turn will skew the demographic of poets they choose to publish.

consider the claim that it'd be absolutely fine for all decisions about what gets published to be taken by straight, white, financially stable, able-bodied, neurotypical, Oxbridge-educated men, because they'd choose based on excellence only and their take on excellence would be an objective measure. Or, that all the poems ever published could be written by straight, white, financially stable, able-bodied, neurotypical, Oxbridge-educated men, and all readers will be perfectly catered to

Curiosity got to me and I googled 'poetry editor' of each place in this list, from the data you provided:

Acumen, Antiphon Poetry, Bare Fiction, The Compass, The Dark Horse, The Guardian, Gutter, Ink Sweat & Tears, London Grip, Long Poem Magazine, Magma, Modern Poetry in Translation, Mslexia, The North, OxfordPoetry, Poems in Which, Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales, Prac Crit, The Rialto, Southword, The Stinging Fly, Tender, The White Review and The Wolf

This may surprise you, at least I'd be surprised if it doesn't given your characterisations above: Of the 29 journals, 21 have a female poetry editor, 12 have a male (4 places had joint M/F editorship). I didn't get as far as digging into their sexual orientations, class background, etc. Of those websites with pictures, though, it's true that there were very few black and brown faces. Two, I think, and one Chinese guy. Which is not great at all.

Still, seems to be female-friendly though, so that's something.

[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

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Matt,

Thanks. That is much clearer. I suppose I'll answer your one direct question as best as I can.

'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.'

Well, we all have bias of course. In matters of art it's just another word for taste or opinion. So yes, a far broader diversity of factors that might influence those potential 'biases' would be healthy in the editorships of poetry world: editors of diverse ethnicity, class, gender and sexual orientation, even aesthetic proclivity towards particular styles: formal or free-verse etc. But I suppose I also like to think that the notion of 'quality', although difficult to define and ultimately subjective, has enough weight in reality for a good editor to make seeking it out, in all its elusiveness, a priority. Beyond considerations of what the poem is 'about' or who is being represented/spoken for/to: is it alive, mysterious, surprising, memorable, layered, do its pleasures stand up to re-reading? All that stuff.

Hey, I can only speak for myself and what I would do. My three favourite poets here might be Nemo, Mary and Walter. Why? Not sure. Well, I have my thoughts but they'd be too long-winded to go into here. Are they 'like me'? Not really. We're different ages, with me in the middle somewhere; we're from different countries; backgrounds; all three are gay and I'm not; I have no idea how they 'identify' in terms of race/religion; they have quite different styles and subjects. And when I read them, none of those things occur to me. It's just me and the poem and I think 'yes – quality'

[Matt Q]

Ok, so maybe I should have inserted the word "systematic" before the word "bias".

Anyhow, that brings me back to my thought experiment. If quality is the determining factor in what gets published and conceptions of quality are independent of the various categories we are slotted into, then it seems like it wouldn't matter if all editors were white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual and upper-class. (Or if all editors were black, female, disabled, lesbian, and working class). We'd end up with pretty much the same poems being published and no systematic distortions.

I guess that's just not something that seems likely to me. But maybe that's a bias on my part.

And if it is, I'll put it down to my age, education, nationality, social class, (dis)abilities and life experience, of course

-Matt

[Julie Steiner]

I appreciate all the time and energy and thought that's going into wrestling with these issues.

The word "quality," like "merit," implies that there are objective and universal ways of measuring something that I think is actually--to some degree, at least--in the eye of the beholder. Beholders, by definition, have different perspectives. Someone who hasn't read much poetry, and hasn't yet encountered certain clichés a bazillion times yet, will be more impressed by a poem containing such clichés than a jaded old fart like myself will be.

We tend to support venues whose editors behold things more or less like we do ourselves. We like to be able to trust the taste of the editors of certain venues to recognize the quality of poems that appeal to our own sensibilities.

If a subscriber's definition of quality is significantly narrower than the editor's, the subscriber gets frustrated and doesn't renew.

In contrast, when an editor's definition of quality is significantly narrower than the subscribers', the subscribers might not even notice, because most readers will have no idea of what they might be missing when anything unusual gets cut as substandard.

[Mark McDonnell]

Hey Matt,

I do accept that as a white, heterosexual, able-bodied man I can view the world unthinkingly through that lens. It is easy in this position to make pretty sounding platitudes about how we're all the same under the skin and more unites than divides us. But the world is made for me; however rough it sometimes feels, I (we) should remember that. What's that old proverb? 'If you want to know what water is like, don't ask a fish'. What I post on these threads is instinctive and inevitably comes from my own biases, though that's true of all of us I suppose. But I'm constantly rethinking and questioning my own biases, and disagreeing with the self that I was 30 minutes earlier and that's why I get genuinely upset, with myself, that I've been misunderstood, or naive, or insensitive or what have you. And these are complex and nuanced issues, I don't think that can be denied. But people of good faith should keep talking to each other and fighting for some real version of equality. We seem to be in a very divisive moment where the internet, and political shifts to the right, are facilitating people's desire to retreat into tribes, where a new national sport seems to be the gleeful creation of a cartoon version of 'identity politics' and 'social justice warriors' set up to be viciously mocked by people immersed in their own hideous and dangerous form of identity politics. I see it in the kids I teach: they had to do spoken presentations recently for their GCSEs and two of the boys did 'The Snowflake Generation' and (honestly) 'Is 3rd wave feminism ruining the country?'. God, it was depressing and kind of frightening. They're 14. I thought back to similar projects from my schooldays; they'd be on 'fly fishing' and 'Dungeons and Dragons'. Anyway, I concede that no doubt there is bias in the publishing world. It's everywhere isn't it, it's the water we swim in. I probably do have a tendency to see it as cleaner than it is, but I am working on it and working on ways to clean it up rather than denying the dirt. I did like Dave's essay though.

Julie - time and energy, yes. Hopefully not entirely pointless. I'm definitely bowing out now. Going to think about Jim's thread instead.

Cheers.

[James Brancheau]

Don't be too apologetic, Mark. The article, to my mind, tries its best not to make this political. I'm fairly left wing and I really can't be anything else, esp given my family history. The true audience here is the working poet.

[James Brancheau]

I will no doubt regret this post, but I think what is actually driving the political divide is an unprecedented disparity between the rich and poor. It's what no one reports, just kind of becomes our reality. It's the biggest story of our generation. And it's not being covered.

(Sorry, got off track)