Except when it’s rewarded! Mr. Mohammad Sohail, deli owner, took the good road back in June and invested a little faith in the thief who tried to rob him.  Once the would-be-thief was on his knees begging for mercy, Mr. Sohail gave him just that:  forty bucks, some bread, and a handshake.  Then a couple of days ago, that same robber sent Mr. Sohail fifty bucks (ten dollars in interest!) along with a note of gratitude and news of how he has a job and a new baby now!   Mr. Sohail, in turn, plans to start a charity foundation.  From Newsday.

Please don’t take another long drag on your ciggie and nonchalantly claim that the editors of Publisher’s Weekly didn’t know they were selecting books solely by men for their Top 10 Best Books of 2009.  I will hurl dragon fire and burn your little house of cards down. One need only peruse the “brief reviews” of each book selected to understand that no conscious being, sucking smoke or drinking coffee, could have been under the misperception that these books were not male-driven — the subject matter of each top ten book is undoubtedly male-centered, save the one collection of short stories.   The content of each book is pure masculine mode (mostly written by men, though women write for purely male interests infrequently):  adventure, problem solving through violence, with sole focus on traditionally-defined masculine protagonists, etc.   Not only does this list  avoid celebrating and promoting women’s stories and modes of being, thinking and exploration, but it doesn’t offer any alternative male narratives that veer from the business-as-usual masculine concerns of war, adventure, and typical exploits such as who’s shagging whom or who discovered what element before the other guy did.  And while this list is only one, it is indicative of a whole history that excludes, tokenizes, and downplays women’s writing.

“But it’s just a list of books!”  Yes, and since we live in a capitalist-driven world, even in the literary realm lists do matter, whether they matter to you or not.  Librarians consult lists of major publications when acquiring books to stock their “New to the Neighborhood” shelves.  Readers check out the latest recommendations so that they can pick up a copy for the bus or their lunch hour.  And acquisitions mean sales, money in publishers’ coffers and writers’ pockets; sales also mean teaching jobs.  The dissemination of these popularized books also leads to the continued proliferation of male interests and values.

Publisher’s Weekly reviews editors claim, “We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz…”, all well and good, except gender runs deeper than simply who wrote the book and it will not be ignored.  Content, and whose interests it serves, is anything but transparent.  Let’s consider the top ten “best” one more time:  headlining is something of a biopic on male British scientists and their daring, next involves an ex-heroin addict Ricky and his big adventure, which brings us to a biography on John Cheever, then the history of producing the missile and other war apparatuses (ahem), onto an exploration of the “cutthroat feudal society”, followed by two “40ish” dudes on adventure, then some guys who go on an adventure to locate two “explorers” previously lost in the jungle, followed by a philosopher-motorcycle repair man protagonist who “extols the value of making and fixing things” (sounds like a rehash of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), and rounding out we conclude with a memoir comprised of drawings about a boy who grows into a man.  Now where, in that mix, could one possibly imagine that any of the mythmaking that goes into spinning the world of men and their interests was spun by the hand of a woman?   Possible but not likely.  “Ignored gender”, indeed.  Such a claim is based on the age-old shaky premise that the universal “he” and “his” story still includes everyone’s story; “she” is presumably enfolded in “he”—and muted.

Not that women can’t and don’t write the male viewpoint and male protagonists, or vice versa, but this list is, without a doubt, one dictated by the interests of men.  And who selected these books while supposedly “ignoring gender”?  What were their criteria?  Were these reviews editors men who like to read about war, men on adventure, male scientists and their explorations, and, well, the male speculation and “quest for knowledge” as one of the reviews put it?  Am I repeating myself?  Overdoing it?  Well, it is all overdone, this idea that men write universal books and women’s stories just “didn’t make the cut” because they weren’t as interesting.  Above all, there seem to be few themes prominent on this list of the most valuable writing in 2009:  male adventure, male exploits, and male quests for answers.  In other words, male-driven content dominates.  Women’s lives, viewpoints, and quests are, for the most part, absent — invisible as the gender the reviews editors claim was for them.  (Lizzie Skirnick considers the ways women’s writing is belittled where the adjectives assigned to men’s writing are glowing in her article, “Same Old Story” – click here. ) 

Women are writing well and have been for some time now, despite being barred from universities and publishing houses for far too long (consult Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own,” please) and practicing our craft in the “lesser” genres of letters, diaries, and journals before being permitted to bind our wares and dispatch them to a limited public.   I won’t get into how long it took for the publishing industry to pick up on the fact that a market existed for woman-made books.  As your Virginia Slims pack notes, we’ve come a long way, baby.   So why in a year when heavy-hitters such as Alice Munro, Toni Morrison, Alicia Ostriker, Barbara Kingsolver, and Margaret Atwood published new books is a prominent group of reviews editors telling me—telling us!– that a biography on Cheever is better than any of the aforementioned writers’ books?  How does a book on missile-making win out over The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, a finalist for the Mann Booker Prize, or any number of the books listed here?  And on what basis, pray tell, did they “ignore gender” and determine which books were best?  That bit still hasn’t been cleared up.

Well, I’ll mix some bad masculine metaphors, down a glass, roll up my sleeves, throw my hat in the ring and speculate what the criteria were that went into determining just what makes a book best in 2009.  The literary tradition has historically prized masculine adventures propelled by violence and power plays, trickery and deception, lascivious exploits, books with climactic plots over episodic plots, triumph-of-the-underdog stories where one who was once dominated becomes top dog, and depictions of taming the untamed whether it be lands, peoples, women, or the lower classes (start with Where the Wild Things Are).  These stories have nearly always held a male character at their centers, driven by his own thirst for conquest of the unknown or that which is not in his power, yet.  Far more books receive awards that celebrate the power of individuals, again usually male, who triumph and end up in some version of hierarchical control as opposed to books that value groups of people who work together for a common good, cooperatively, as equals, despite or even because of differences in abilities, talents, and histories—the traditions that girls and women are taught to uphold.  This is also partially why so many girls learn to imitate mothers, who will nurture and give all even at the expense of their own demise if necessary (Charlotte’s Web, anyone?).  So female-driven content traditionally includes stories that center on learning to ready one’s self as the trophy for a man (think Disney-edited stories), preparing to nurture the family via endurance and sacrifice in the domestic realm of motherhood and wifely roles, cooperation among other girls and women, etc.  Of course, we now have contemporary perverted spin-offs of those old tales where we see women being catty, imitating a version of muted violence when it comes to vying for a man, as well as assuming the same role of the sacrificial lamb-mother.  But women have also been telling our own stories now for some time; we just aren’t making the same pay-dirt that men are, nor are we, apparently, topping the lists of what’s best so much because, I contend, we aren’t telling the masculine fables of yore (and now).

These lists aren’t just about celebrating male authors but are also about recognizing what values many male authors (and some female ones) continue to perpetuate.  Admittedly, I have not read through P.W.’s top ten, but I dare say that very few of those books on the list will bear the responsibility I see writers as having:  to be critics of the usual, old dominant ideals and to expose those ideals rather than simply transmitting them yet again.  That involves telling stories unheard and bearing witness to injustices as well as ways of being that debunk these tireless violent notions of conquering lands and peoples or just the world in our immediate vicinities.  Because frankly, those kinds of stories have been over-told and lead down a worn-out road far too often taken.   There are so many other ways of being.  If our tales reflect the culture we live in, then we should be telling so many more kinds of tales. Helene Cixous echoes in L’Arc, “writing is the possibility of change itself…the movement which precedes the transformation of social and cultural structures.”  The same old rehashed male adventures and conquests are why in the waking world we generally think in terms of vying for power; the fist is an easier remedy than talk, and people unlike ourselves seem intolerable and need our dominance and taming.   It takes real work to write less glamorized accounts of lives restricted by traditional women’s—and men’s—roles, and it’s even harder to imagine new and alternative trajectories characters of any gender could take.  We often find the familiar stories we’re raised on comforting and enjoyable.  That’s one type of pleasure, one that often goes unexamined and is sought out for comfort and affirmation of what one knows.  Another type of pleasure, according to Roland Barthes, is that which discomforts and surprises, tells us of the unusual and unfamiliar, stories we’ve not yet heard and realities not yet fathomed by the public.   Lists may include both kinds of pleasures, if reader-reviewers made a concerted effort not to just note which stories made them feel good by reflecting their own lives and modes of storytelling they’re used to, or as my students like to sing, “Stories we can relate to!” when they are demanding white male-centric adventures to excite them.

Now don’t get me wrong:  I’m not saying all men (and some women!) write in those tired old traditional male modes, complete with singular male interests. Nor am I asking for a list of all women’s stories.  In fact, I’m with Helene Cixous again when she states, “I, for one, am absolutely against marginalization…that would amount to going back to this sort of absurd dream: ‘a man’s world/a woman’s world.’ This is not so!  This is a world of men and women where it is up to women to impose something which is their difference in the equality.”  What I am saying is that when you ignore the fact that you have included no women’s writing on your top ten reading list, or topically-unusual stories at the very least, and then dismiss that fact with some lame excuse like you didn’t feel like being “p.c.” today (whatever the hell that means and whoever the hell is ever politically-correct), then you are also choosing to ignore that ideologically and politically, men’s interests have dominated most public arenas for a long, long time and that you are pretty much publicly declaring that you don’t care, you don’t have any responsibility as someone in a position of capitalist-driven power, however minor.  If you’re okay with that, well, I’m not.  So here’s my letter to you:  I’ll not meet your ignorance with ignorance.  I’ll point out the unjust bias of your list, note what’s lacking, and while you locate additional excuses for your laziness and ways to defend your comfort zone, I’ll continue to write about such antics and use you as my stalwart example.  Got a light?

~~~~~~

Related

* In Amelia Gray’s muddled response, “In Defense of the Weenie Roast,” she speculates the causes of such omissions are because women don’t submit work as often as men and because women buy books by men.  Um, first, if your publishing company isn’t receiving enough submissions by women, that’s likely because women submit where they want to see there work published and know their work won’t be treated in a belittling manner.  Second if you want to publish more women’s work, which you especially should if your press is a weenie roast, then try this ancient concept:  solicit work!  It takes more effort to examine your publishing practices and send a friendly invitation than it does to blame women for not submitting to you.  Nate Pritts opened a debate over this issue at H_NGM_N recently (click here).   As for the books women buy, we too have been trained in the art of liking men’s books, and many of us do.  But it’d be nice to see books that I’ve described above celebrated too.  There is a history of women’s books being discussed as “less than.”  If more were available, I dare say more would be purchased.  Of course, Gray does not consider the content of the books on the list or the criteria that went into selecting them.  Regardless of the reviewers’ silence about their criteria (If I don’t examine what I think is “best”, why should you?), we should understand that we don’t read in a vacuum and that our reading histories are shaped by the educational systems and cultural production machines we participate in.  What we like is influenced by trends, familiarity, what’s deemed “good” by teachers and reviewers, etc.  We don’t always like what’s good for us, which is a compelling reason to think about the reasons we like something.

* Lizzie Skurnick – “Same Old Story:  Best-Books Lists Snub Women Writers”

* Courtney Milan – “All men:  seriously?”

* WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts)

* The Guardian article

* Uproar Against Publisher’s Weekly 2009 List

* Zelda Lily:  Feminism in a Bra

*  Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young – “Numbers Trouble”

Ghost Doe

I’m always in the east.
I would like to sit
on your property among the leaves and soft
decay of lawn.
Someone is back here, eating petals,
rattling jars on your shelves
in the dank garden room. I stand, hooded figure, ancient.
You cannot see.
You are following the scent of smoke wisps.
But why does the vehicle come,
a season, readying, a wheelchair?
I can see through your windows, eat the hearth
and your legs outstretched.
I am mostly myth, human,
a person built of sight and sound.
Cracks in the gutters and a leeching
of whatever it may mean to be a stick figure
among razor thin trees.
To make more is a censorship,
a formation of granite where soft
wood to the core once stood. We are berries,
stricken by barriers, erect fences laced through with fingers.
We work, we inevitable.
Let’s play the part of the runner and make
the mark of speed,
strip the door of its frame, the sills of their sleeves.
Teach the vines to honey the basement’s womb,
channel out to the iron chairs
and pumpkin the stairs with all that is reserved in your smile,
hidden by autumn’s flame, the doe of death.

Amy King

~~~

“Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery, in which the publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our backs; not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don’t like the true texts of women – female-sexed texts. That kind scares them.” –Hélène Cixous

~~~

Thanks backatchya, Mr. Knott.

~~~

Review copies are getting round…

~~~

The Del Sol Review presents

Failed to Include
and
U.S. History
and
Miracle on the Hudson
and
A Bruise That Stains the Teeth
Amy King

Flowers Lose Their Smell
Alka Roy

Fuzzy Liberty
Dipika Mukherjee

Loops and Arches
Munize M. Khasru

CONTEMPORARY QUEER POETS
Grow this list – Proliferate! Redistribute!

I initially started this list as one for contemporary queer poets, but it has grown to include the living and the dead, the post-poet, the fiction and non-fiction, the bent, the bendable, and more. Thanks to all who’ve contributed so far! Please feel free to add names in the comments as we are growing, blooming, and busting the borders!

In no particular order, except as added:

Akilah Oliver +++ Tisa Bryant
Nathaniel Siegal+++ Ching-In Chin
Julian Brolaski +++ Cynthia Sailers
Kathryn Pringle+++ E. Tracy Grinnell
Tim Peterson +++ Jill Magi
Brenda Iijima +++ Stacy Szymaszek
Erica Kaufman +++ Truck Darling
R. Erica Doyle +++ Wayne Koestenbaum
Ana Bozicevic +++ Trish Salah
Robert Glück +++ Rachel Zolf
Cedar Sigo +++ Scott Rex Hightower
Jen Benka +++ Carol Mirakove
Caroline Bergvall +++ Eileen Myles
Marilyn Hacker+++ John Ashbery
Mark Doty +++ Timothy Liu
D. A. Powell +++ Kay Ryan
Reginald Shepherd+++ Mark Bibbins
Mark Wunderlich +++ Magdalena Zurawski
Julie R. Enszer +++ Merry Gangemi
Nicki Hastie +++ Gwyn McVay
Michelle Tea +++ Ben McCoy
Alex Dimitrov +++ Michael Tod Edgerton
C. Dale Young +++ Betsy Wheeler
Megan Volpert +++ Deborah Poe
Gabrielle Calvocoressi+++ Joy Harjo
Gloria Anzaldua+++ Elena Georgiou
Elise Ficarra +++ Paul Foster Johnson
Robin Reagler +++ Rachel Levitsky
Richard Siken +++ Kazim Ali
Micah Ballard +++ Jeffery Beam
Gregg Biglieri +++ Nicole Brossard
Regie Cabico +++ David Cameron
Guillermo Castro +++ Abigail Child
Allison Cobb +++ Jen Coleman
Kyle Conner +++ Dennis Cooper
Jim Cory +++ Phil Crippen
Del Ray Cross +++ Rachel Daley
Almitra David +++ Tim Dlugos
kari edwards +++ Maria Fama
Michael Farrell +++ Alex Gildzen
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Alexandra Grilikhes+++ Chris Gullo
Jeremy Halinen +++ Rob Halpern
Julia Hastain +++ Yuri Hospodar
Kevin Killian +++ Dodie Bellamy
Bill Kushner +++ Lori Lubeski
Filip Marinovich +++ Janet Mason
Sina Queyras +++ Camille Roy
Jocelyn Saidenberg +++ Trish Salah
Jack Spicer +++ Christina Strong
Roberto Tejada +++ Karl Tierney
Jay Thomas +++ David Trinidad
Tony Towle +++ R. Dionysius Whiteurs
Eli Shipley +++ Kary Wayson
Carl Phillips +++ Jeremy Halinen
Betsey Warland+++ Jen Currin
Christine Leclerc +++ Charles Jensen
Carol Guess +++ Elizabeth Colen
Chocoalte Waters +++ Mary Oliver
Judith Witherow +++ Judy Grahn
Jan Clausen +++ Dorothy Allison
Robin Morgan +++ Willyce Kim
Frank Kelly +++ Kevin Wisher
Meredith Pond +++ Janet Mason
Fran Winant +++ Audre Lorde
Paula Gunn Allen +++ Allen Ginsberg
Walt Whitman +++ W.H. Auden
Frank O’Hara +++ Cyrus Cassells
Elizabeth Bradfield+++ Rafael Campo
Robin Becker +++ Truong Tran
William Burroughs+++ Carol Ann Duffy
Pat Parker +++ Elsa Gidlow
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) +++ Amy Lowell
Elizabeth Bishop +++ Olga Broumas
Sapphire +++ Cheryl Clarke
Jewelle Gomez +++ Joan Larkin
Fran Winant +++ Minnie Bruce Pratt
Adrienne Rich +++ May Sarton
Muriel Rukeyser +++ Cherrie Moraga
Lesléa Newman +++ Mark Doty
Mark Wunderlich +++ D.A. Powell
Randall Mann +++ Peter Covino
Rigoberto Gonzalez +++ David Groff
C. Dale Young +++ Walter Holland
Eric Gamalinda +++ Michael Montlack
Charles Jensen +++ Gregg Shapiro
Stephen McLeod +++ Spencer Reece
Ron Mohring +++ Michael Broder
Richard Tayson +++ Dean Kostos
Aaron Smith +++ Ron Drummond
Guillermo Filice +++ Jon Nalley
Steven Covdova +++ Steven Turtel
Jason Scheiderman +++ Stephen Motika
T. Cole Rachel +++ Christopher Davis
Greg Hewett +++ David Casto
Billie Merrill +++ Alex Dimitrov
Wren Tuatha +++ Marge Piercy
Lawrence Schimel+++ Robin Kemp
Tee Corinne +++ Tory Dent
Elizabeth Bishop +++ Gertrude Stein
Muriel Rukeyser +++ Kay Murphy
Hart Crane +++ Harold Norse
James Schuyler +++ Robert Duncan
John Wieners +++ William Bronk
Stephen Jonas +++ Joseph Legaspi
Richard Howard +++ Renee Vivien
Natalie Barney +++ Stephanie Byrd
Nathalie Stephens +++ Ellen Marie Bissert
Karen Brodine +++ Maureen Seaton
Jane Miller +++ Olga Broumas
Elizabeth Bradfield +++ Samiya Bashir
Gerry Gomez Pearlberg
Judith Barrington +++ Eloise Klein Healy
James Merrill +++ Brent Goodman
Ben Grossberg +++ Darius Antwan Stewart
Franklin Abbot +++ Thom Gunn
Liz Ahl +++ Jonathan Alexander
Cynthia Rausch Allar +++ Shane Allison
Mark Ameen +++ Ken Anderson
Maggie Anderson +++ Hanna Andrews
Duncan Armstrong +++ Rane Arroyo
Geer Austin +++ Kim Baker
John Barton +++ Ellen Bass
Dan Bellm +++ David Bergman
Erin Bertram +++ Tamiko Beyer
Jonathan Bracker +++ Michael Broder
Dustin Brookshire +++ Regie Cabico
Guillermo Castro +++ Terry Kirts
Erigh Leigh +++ Tony Leuzzi
Justin Chin +++ James Cihlar
Ava Cipri +++ Larry Wayne Johns
Rodney Jack +++ CA Conrad
Christina Hutchins +++ Steven Cordova
Alfred Corn +++ Eduardo Corral
Brian Teare +++ James Crews
Holly Day +++ Jeff Mann
Dean Kostos +++ Andrew Demcak
Gavin Dillard +++ Patrick Donnelly
Octavio Gonzalez +++ Rudy Kikel
Ron Drummond +++ Jim Elledge
Steve Fellner +++ Edward Field
Edward Denby +++ Ron Schreiber
Federico Lorca +++ Matthew Hittinger
David Groff +++ Ruth Schwartz
Maureen Seaton +++ Michael Klein
Amanda Laughtland+++ Jill Jones
Michael Farrell +++ Collin Kelley
Cleo Creech +++ Theresa Davis
Turner Cassity +++ Alan Sullivan
Timothy Murphy +++ Jessica Hand
Alice Teeter +++ Maudelle Driskell
Julie Fay +++ Ed Madden
Assoto Saint +++ Reinaldo Arenas
Honor Moore +++ Melanie Braverman
Thomas Avena +++ Sam D’Allesandro
Essex Hemphill +++ Paul Monette
Severo Sarduy +++ Ian Stephens
Zaedryn Meade +++ Stacie Cassarino
gabrielle jesiolowski +++ Nancy Kathleeen Pearson
Cheryl Boyce Taylor +++ Ruth L. Schwartz
Achy Obejas +++ Tamiko Beyer
Sunshine Dempsey +++ Cheryl Burke
Laurie J. Hoskin +++ Kristin Naca
Samiya Baskin +++ Staceyann Chin
Niki Herd +++ Julie Porter
Juliet Patterson +++ Jeff Walt
Elaine Sexton +++ Ken Pobo
Richard Tayson +++ Michael Lassell
Greg Hewett +++ Adrian Oktenberg
Stacey Waite +++ Steven Riel
RJ Gibson +++ Jen Perrine
Boyer Rickel +++ William Reichard
Ann Tweedy +++ Ragan Fox
David Trinidad +++ Brad Telford
James Kirkup +++ Kevin McLellan
Ocean Vuong +++ Robert Walker
Henri Cole +++ Scott Wiggerman
Tiffany Wong +++ Peter Pereira
Reggie Harris +++ David Dooley
Frank Bidart +++ Kristy Nielsen
Greg Scott Brown +++ Brian Leary
Holly Painter +++ Vicente Viray
Mark Ameen +++ Beatrix Gates
William Dickey +++ Melvin Dixon
Essex Hemphill +++ James L White
James Schuyler +++ Paul Goodman
Joe Brainard +++ Pam Brown
David Malouf +++ Martin Harrison
joanne burns +++ Keri Glastonbury
Louise Wakeling +++ Martin Harrison
Bel Schenk +++ Angela Gardne
Stephen J Williams +++ Tim Denoon
Jill Jones +++ Maria Zajkowski
Chris Edwards +++ Louise Wakeling
Danny Gentile +++ Denis Gallagher
Kate Lilley +++ Paul Knobel
Andy Quan +++ Jenni Nixon
Miriel Lenore +++ Terry Jaensch
Margaret Bradstock +++ Javant Biarujia
Dîpti Saravanamuttu+++ Nandi Chinna
Wendy Jenkins +++ Peter Rose
Lee Cataldi +++ Carolyn Gerrish
Dorothy Porter+++ Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Susan Hawthorne +++ Tricia Dearborn
Kerry Leves +++ Ian MacNeill
Amanda Katz +++ Corrine Fitzpatrick
Danica Colic +++ Jack Lynch
Martha Oatis +++ James Allen Hall
Jan Heller Levi+++ Jenny Johnson
Jericho Brown +++ Kerry Carnahan
L.B. Thompson +++ Laura Jaramillo
Maya Funaro +++ Miller Oberman
Misty Harper +++ Richard Sime
Suzanne Gardinier+++ Valentine Freeman
Gregg Bordowitz +++ Sarah Dowling
Ari Banias +++ Sophie Robinson
Angie Estes +++ Kathy Fagan
Tommy Peeps +++ Nat Raha
Francesca Lisette +++ Tricia Bayman
Linda Bierds +++ Larissa Lai
Vanessa Huang +++ Soham Patel
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Dulani +++ Rona Luo
Naomi A. Jackson +++ Celeste Chan
Zuleika Mahmood +++ Maiana Minahal
Sharon Bridgforth +++ Joel B. Tan
Griselda Suarez +++ Rigoberto Gonzalez
J.P. Pluecker +++ Kristin Naca
Duriel E. Harris +++ Nickole Brown
Qwo-Li Driskill +++ Deborah Miranda
Aimee Suzara +++ Amy King

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, brodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. if you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from-it’s where you take them to.”

-- Jim Jarmusch

Why Weren’t Any Women Invited To Publishers Weekly’s Weenie Roast?

Publishers Weekly recently announced their Best Books Of 2009 list. Of their top ten, chosen by editorial staff, no books written by women were included. Quoted in The Huffington Post, PW confidently admitted that they’re “not the most politically correct” choices. This statement comes in a year in which new books appeared by writers such as Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker.

“The absence made me nearly speechless.” said writer Cate Marvin, cofounder of the newly launched national literary organization WILLA (Women In Letters And Literary Arts), which, since August, has attracted close to 5400 members on their Facebook web page, including many major and emerging women writers. “It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture.”

WILLA’s other cofounder, Erin Belieu, Director Of The Creative Writing Program at Florida State University, asked, “So is the flipside here that including women authors on the list would just have been an empty, politically correct gesture? When PW’s editors tell us they’re not worried about ‘political correctness,’ that’s code for ‘your concerns as a feminist aren’t legitimate.’ They know they’re being blatantly sexist, but it looks like they feel good about that. I, on the other hand, have heard from a whole lot of people—writers and readers–who don’t feel good about it at all.”

PW also did a Top 100 list and, of the authors included, only 29 were women. The WILLA Advisory Board is in the process of putting together a list titled “Great Books Published By Women In 2009.” This will be posted to the organization’s Facebook page and website. A WILLA Wiki has also been started for people to share their nominations for Great Books By Women in 2009. Press release to follow.

WILLA was founded to bring increased attention to women’s literary accomplishments and to question the American literary establishment’s historical slow-footedness in recognizing and rewarding women writer’s achievements. WILLA is about to launch their website and is in the process of planning their first national conference to be held next year.

(Note: until recently, WILLA went under the acronym WILA, with one “L.” If you’re interested in the organization, please Google WILA with one “L” to see background on how this group was originally formed.)

For more information contact:

Erin Belieu – ebelieu@fsu.edu

Cate Marvin – catemarvin@gmail.com

THE CONTENT

Man Made of Books – Books Made of Men

Spent some time checking out the general content of the books that made the list – the summaries are all taken from the Publisher’s Weekly website below.  Simple to observe that the content that “stood out from the rest,” according to PW, is all about mostly male protagonists and their realities: war, adventure, science, boyhood adventures, taming the wilderness, the male writer’s life, etc.  In other words, the novels that deal with women’s realities simply “don’t stand out” – check Publishers Weekly TOP TEN:

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Pantheon)

[PRIMARILY ABOUT MALE PROTAGONISTS FOCUSED ON MOSTLY MALE SCIENTISTS]

Holmes, author of a much-admired biography of Coleridge, focuses on prominent British scientists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including the astronomer William Herschel and his accomplished assistant and sister, Caroline; Humphrey Davy, a leading chemist and amateur poet; and Joseph Banks, whose journal of a youthful voyage to Tahiti was a study in sexual libertinism. Holmes’s biographical approach makes his obsessive protagonists (Davy’s self-experimenting with laughing gas is an epic in itself) the prototypes of the Romantic genius absorbed in a Promethean quest for knowledge.

~

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon (Ballantine)

[AGAIN, MOSTLY MALE PROTAGONISTS]

Eighteen-year-old Lucy Lattimore, her parents dead, flees her stifling hometown with charismatic high school teacher George Orson, soon to find herself enmeshed in a dangerous embezzling scheme. Meanwhile, Miles Chesire is searching for his unstable twin brother, Hayden, a man with many personas who’s been missing for 10 years and is possibly responsible for the house fire that killed their mother. Ryan Schuyler is running identity-theft scams for his birth father, Jay Kozelek, after dropping out of college to reconnect with him, dazed and confused after learning he was raised thinking his father was his uncle.

~

Big Machine by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)

[AGAIN, THE MALE REALITY WINS]

Gritty, mostly honest-hearted ex-heroin addict protagonist Ricky Rice takes a chance on an anonymous note delivered to him at the cruddy upstate New York bus depot where he works as a porter.

~

Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey (Knopf)

[ALL ABOUT A MAN]

In this overlong but always entertaining biography, composed with a novelist’s eye, Bailey, biographer of Richard Yates and editor of two volumes of Cheever’s work for Library of America (also due in March), was given access to unpublished portions of Cheever’s famous journals and to family members and friends.

~

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan (Random House)

[AHEM, SERIOUS MALE REALITIES, WAR AND "REAL WORLD" SHIT]

The military-industrial complex proves an unlikely arena for plucky individualism in this history of the men who built America’s intercontinental ballistic missile program in the 1950s and ‘60s. Sheehan paints air force Gen. Bernard Schriever and his colorful band of military aides, civilian patrons, defense intellectuals and aerospace entrepreneurs as a guerrilla insurgency fighting Pentagon red tape, and a hostile air force brass, led by Strategic Air Command honcho Curtis LeMay, who advocated megatonnage bomber planes over ICBMs.

~

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Norton)

In eight beautifully crafted, interconnected stories, Mueenuddin explores the cutthroat feudal society in which a rich Lahore landowner is entrenched.

~

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer (Pantheon)

[WHOA, MANLY ADVENTURE]

Two 40-ish men seeking love and existential meaning are the protagonists of these highly imaginative twin novellas, written in sensuous, lyrical prose brimming with colorful detail.

~

Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann (Doubleday)

[SURPRISE:  MORE ON MEN AND THEIR ADVENTUROUS NATURES]

In 1925, renowned British explorer Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett embarked on a much publicized search to find the city of Z, site of an ancient Amazonian civilization that may or may not have existed. Fawcett, along with his grown son Jack, never returned, but that didn’t stop countless others, including actors, college professors and well-funded explorers from venturing into the jungle to find Fawcett or the city. Among the wannabe explorers is Grann, a staff writer for the New Yorker, who has bad eyes and a worse sense of direction.

~

Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin Press)

[WHEW, THIS LIST SHOULD BE CALLED, "HOW MEN LIVE"]

Philosopher and motorcycle repair-shop owner Crawford extols the value of making and fixing things in this masterful paean to what he calls manual competence, the ability to work with one’s hands.

~

Stitches by David Small (Norton)

[AND HOW BOYS GROW UP TO BECOME MEN]

In this profound and moving memoir, Small, an award-winning children’s book illustrator, uses his drawings to depict the consciousness of a young boy. The story starts when the narrator is six years old and follows him into adulthood, with most of the story spent during his early adolescence.

~

**Why aren’t more people saying something about such blatant hypocrisies?  Publishers Weekly’s lists are likely consulted by librarians for acquisitions purposes – does this mean we are not interested in reading about women’s lives?  Is PW really *that* irresponsible?

Bring your socks and your appetite!

SEGUE READING SERIES @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB

Saturday, Oct 24th — Catherine Wagner & Amy King — this is the event that will be held next door at 310 Bowery (Bob Holman’s apartment) instead:

Catherine Wagner’s new book, My New Job, is forthcoming. She is also the author of Macular Hole and Miss America. Recent chapbooks include Articulate How, Hole in the Ground, and Bornt. She is a faculty member in the MA program in creative writing at Miami University in Ohio.

Amy King is the author of I’m the Man Who Loves You, Antidotes for an Alibi, and The People Instruments. Forthcoming, Slaves to Do These Things and I Want to Make You Safe.

All readings* take place at:

Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
New York, New York 10012
Ph: 212-614-0505
Price: 6 dollars
Event days/times: Saturdays, 4-6 pm

*Except for the reading on Saturday, Oct 24, which will take place at 310 Bowery instead.

Verse broadens the mind, scientists find

RICHARD GRAY (rgray@scotlandonsunday.com)

IF LITERATURE is food for the
 mind, then a poem is a banquet, according to research by Scottish scientists
 which shows poetry is better for the brain than prose.

Psychologists at Dundee
and St Andrews universities claim the work of poets such as Lord
Byron exercise the mind more than a novel by Jane Austen. By monitoring the way
different forms of text are read, they found poetry generated far more eye
 movement which is associated with deeper thought.

Subjects were found to read
 poems slowly, concentrating and re-reading individual lines more than they did with 
prose. Preliminary studies using brain-imaging technology also showed greater
 levels of cerebral activity when people listened to poems being read aloud. Dr
Jane Stabler, a literature expert at St Andrews University and a member of the research group, believes poetry 
may stir latent preferences in the brain for rhythm and rhymes that develop
 during childhood. She claims the intense imagery woven through poems, and 
techniques used by poets to unsettle their readers, force them to think more
 carefully about each line. “There seems to be an almost immediate
 recognition that this is a different sort of language that needs to be 
approached in a way that will be more attentive to the density of words in
 poetry,” she said. “It may be because readers are trying to hear the 
words or recreate the imaginary event the poet has provided a script for.
” Also, children seem to be born with a love of rhyme and rhythm. Then
 something happens and by the time we see them in the first year at university
 many of them are almost frightened of poetry and clamouring to study the
 contemporary novel.”
To study readers’ reactions,
 the research group focused an infrared beam on the pupils of their eyes to
 detect minute movements as they read.

They found poetry produced 
all the standard psychological indications associated with intellectual
 difficulty, such as slow deliberate movement, re-reading sections and long
 pauses. Even when they used identical content but displayed it in both a poem
 format and a prose format, they discovered readers found the poem form the more
 difficult to understand. Stabler said: “When readers decide that something
 is a poem, they read in a different way. As literary critics we would like to 
think that this is a more thoughtful way, more receptive to the text’s richness
 and complexity, but in psychological terms it is the same sort of reading
 produced by a dyslexic reader who finds reading difficult. “We focused on
 poetry that disturbs or unsettles readers like the work of Lord Byron. “We
 found that his stanza form in Don Juan does make subjects read more quickly
 than readers focusing on the rhymes of an elegy in a similar metre.”

Stabler believes those
 reading other poets, such as Robert Burns, would show similar increases in
 brain activity.

The group hopes to use
 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans to watch how the brain reacts as people 
listen to poetry and prose. Early results suggest a larger area of the brain
 lights up in the scans upon hearing poetry by Byron than prose by Austen. The 
research has profound implications for the way English literature is taught in
 schools, and Stabler believes they should consider placing greater emphasis on 
teaching youngsters poetry.

Both rhythm and rhyme have been found to be
 intricately linked with making and recalling memories. Stabler asked: “If 
poetry helps to stir memory, might it be useful in the treatment of age-related
 or injury related memory problems?” Dr Martin Fischer, an experimental
 psychologist at Dundee University involved in the project, claims the findings could 
also form the basis for producing new techniques for helping dyslexic children.
 He said: “It certainly has implications for children who have certain
 difficulties, like in dyslexia where a rhyming deficiency could be compensated
 for by exposing them to more poetry.” Members of the literary world have
 welcomed the research and insist it underlines the importance poetry has played 
in literature.

Bestselling crime novelist Ian Rankin said too many people felt
 intimidated by poetry without realising it was designed to be challenging. He
 said: “Novels first began as a form of poetry where story telling was used
 to pass tales from one generation to the next. This was done with rhythm and
 rhyme as it made the stories easier to remember. “We are even seeing that
 today with song lyrics – the only way rap artists can remember all those lyrics
 is because they have rhythm and rhyme. “Not many people pick up books of 
poetry anymore to read. You have to wonder if people find them too hard. “
Edwin Morgan, the nation’s official Makar, the Scottish equivalent of the poet
 laureate, added: “Writing poetry is almost a physical experience as well
 as mental. Children are rarely worried about extracting too much meaning from
 poems, but they seem to get a much deeper experience from it.”

VISIT EOAGH NOW!

A PANEL, READING, & EXHIBITION
CHARLES OLSON: LANGUAGE AS PHYSICAL FACT

Tenney Nathanson
Cole Swensen
Steve McCaffery
Barbara Henning
Anne Waldman

A CHAPBOOK
Nothing is in Here, by Andrew Levy

READINGS/ARTICLES

An Interview with Kevin Killian, by Tony Leuzzi
TEXT FOR A CUL-DE-SAC, by Wystan Curnow & Lawrence Weiner
The Functional Art of Bruce Nauman, by Jessica Hullman
A Topological Memoir by Penelope Bloodworth
Poetic Ecologies in Bruxelles, by Arpine Konyalian Grenier
Composition as Exposition: A Case File, by Bill Marsh
Paradox: The Diminishing Increase of an Author, by Tom Clark
Field Poetics (a compleat history of de-individualizing practices), by Donald Wellman
Raymond Roussel’s (New) Africa, by Louis Bury
Iterative View (of Brent Cunningham’s Bird & Forest), by Jesse Seldess
Double Review of Amy King, by Matthew Rotando
Review of Brenda Iijima’s Rabbit Lesson, by Geoffrey Olsen
Metapoetic Speculation In/On Tom Beckett’s “This Poem,” by Thomas Fink
Reading Julian Poirer’s Poetry, by Filip Marinovich
Review of Joseph Lease’s Broken World, by John Chavez

POETRY
 BY

Samuel Ace & Maureen Seaton, William Allegrezza, Renee Angle, Robyn Art, Ari Banias, Emily Beall, Roberto Bedoya, James Belflower, Graeme Bezanson, Carlos T. Blackburn, Kate Broad, Julian T. Brolaski, Ethan Saul Bull, Tetman Callis, Sean Casey, Stephen Chamberlain, Cheryl Clark, Kate Colby, Thomas Cook, Lisa Cooper, Barbara Cully, Mark Cunningham, Shira Dentz, Amanda Deutch, Michelle Detorie, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Moses Eder, Will Edmiston, Thomas Fink & Maya Diablo Mason, Greg Fuchs, Kristen Gallagher, Lawrence Giffin, Giles Goodland, Noah Eli Gordon, Stephanie Gray, Arpine Grenier, Gabriel Gudding, John Harkey, Jeff Harrison, Nathan Hauke, Stefania Heim, Derek Henderson, Michael S. Hennessey, Chelsea Hodson, N. M. Hoffman, Erika Howsare, Paolo Javier, Adeena Karasick, Michael Kelleher, Vincent Katz, Amy King, Paula Kolek, Mark Lamoureux, Dorothea Lasky, Gregory Laynor, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Ruth Lepson, Joel Lewis, Eric Lindley, Hillary Lyon, Kimberly Lyons, Jami Macarty, Majena Mafe, Jill Magi, CJ Martin, Filip Marinovich, Kristi Maxwell, Rachel May & Joshua A. Ware, E.J. McAdams, Pattie McCarthy, Chris McCreary, Nicholas Messenger, Benjamin Miller, Carol Mirakove, Rajiv Mohabir, Emily Moore, Glenn Mott, Uche Nduka, Gale Nelson, Maurice Olivier, Geoffrey Olsen, Monica Peck, Jennifer Petersen, Lance Phillips, Siri Phillips, Nick Piombino, Lanny Quarles, Jessy Randall & Daniel M. Shapiro, Karin Randolph, Karen Randall & Ross, Priddle, Michael Rerick, Christie Ann Reynolds, James Sanders, Sam Schild, Kyle Schlesinger, Morgan Lucas Schuldt, Paul Siegell, Sandra Simonds, Joel Sloman, Rick Snyder, Alan Sondheim, Leah Souffrant, Sparrow, Christopher Stackhouse, Elizabeth Kate Switaj, Eileen Tabios, Paige Taggart, Anne Tardos, Jeremy James Thompson, Elizabeth Treadwell, Matt Turner, Mara Vahratian, Nico Vassilakis, Andi Werblin, Sara Wintz, and Deborah Wood

VISIT EOAGH NOW!

The New York Public Library: Grand Central Branch – 135 East 46th Street NY, NY

October 3rd @ 2 PM– Shanna Compton, Nada Gordon and Amy King

Shanna Compton is the author of For Girls (& Others) (Bloof Books, 2008), Down Spooky (Winnow, 2005), GAMERS (Soft Skull, 2004), and several chapbooks. Her poems and essays have appeared widely, including Best American Poetry 2005, McSweeney’s, the Poetry Foundation website, and the forthcoming Flarf anthology. Recent poems and an essay may be found in the tenth anniversary issue of LIT. She blogs desultorily at shannacompton.com.

Nada Gordon’s books include V. Imp., Are Not Your Lowing Heifers Sleeker Than Night-Swollen Mushrooms, Swoon (with Gary Sullivan) and Foriegn Bodi, and Folly (2007). Visit her blog at http://ululate.blogspot.com

Amy King is the author of I’m the Man Who Loves You and Antidotes for an Alibi, and forthcoming, I Want to Make You Safe and Slaves to Do These Things. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College and curates the Brooklyn-based reading series, The Stain of Poetry. For more information, please visit amyking.org

~~~

BOOK

STARS OF THE NIGHT COMMUTE by ANA BOZICEVIC

Stars of the Night Commute haunts in three dimensions, knit by a below-words rumble in the sure rhythm of dreams. Many of the poems carry a shamanistic, elemental quality, as if real matter were articulating out of word-fragments. Božičević writes, “At the end of poetry the poem can no longer be remote.” If this is “the end of poetry,” perhaps poetry is, after all, reaching forward back to its beginning.

—Annie Finch

Ana Božičević’s poetry has everything–a mastery of language, a distinct and singular voice and a worldview so visionary and all-encompassing, so as to both terrify and astound. The words bristle with life, and they command the deepest reverence for the Ineffable, for pure Being. This poetry is clever without being shallow, and this is truly rare. Silence is my most honest response to her work, but a silence rooted in respect and awe for that which is truly great art.

—Noelle Kocot

Ana Božičević’s work is sort of animist—it’s either about silence or the racket of the world. How does she do it? Clicks the switch to say it’s silent & it’s happening then on a distant tiny stage. She’s muttering, and then it’s a story and a very good one. I mean in poetry at some point you don’t know what the writer means. In Ana’s work I watch “it” vanish (all the time)  & I trust it.

—Eileen Myles

Ana Božičević’s work is filled with a wild freedom, and reading it often reminds me of reading Wallace Stevens, in that you know absolutely anything can happen next but whatever it is, it will be perfect. In her poems she expresses an attitude of solemn responsibility to history, both the world’s and her own, yet there is often a marvelous lightness, even playfulness about them. She is able to stretch language to its most ineffable and musical limits while maintaining a masterful grasp of the colloquial. These are not just technical matters. An émigré from reality (in the form of one of modern time’s most monstrously and moronically cruel wars) and a Cassandra, she is able to perceive with the eyes of language–then render with lyrical immediacy–the experience of our collective sleepwalking soul, who may well soon awaken to discover that its terror was not a dream.

—Franz Wright

–PRE-ORDER @ TARPAULIN SKY PRESS

~~~

BAND

Samantha Farrell
Strand of Oaks
Karisa Wilson
Amir Darzi
Michael Tyrell
Amy King
Judson Claiborne

Sunday, September 13th @ 9 PM
The Living Room NYC : TICKETS

Why do children play with dolls? One reason is that they like to make up stories and act them out. Dolls serve as permissible figures that allow children to become comfortable with who they, and others, are and to explore what this humanity might mean in an attempt to figure out how to inhabit it. They have not yet learned to hide their imaginations in some secret pocket or channel their speculative natures into a grown-up medium that could prove lucrative in the future such as writing novels or painting. Dolls are simply used for play and promise no other endgame.

Enter “Lars and the Real Girl.” The story begins when we meet one man packed full of neuroses – not by any fault of his own – and his adult doll. Lar’s mother died while giving birth to him, and his father presumably withdrew, as implied by his older brother, Gus, who notes that dad was “too sad.” On their first visit to Dr. Dagmar’s office, Gus unwittingly determines exactly why Lars is suddenly “delusional” when he proclaims that the only things that have changed in the past year are that “Karin is pregnant and Lars has gone crazy!” We later learn that Karin’s pregnancy frightens Lars immensely, and the appearance of a new woman at work who seems to be interested in him probably compounds the situation. Life is changing around the protagonist, who, not-so-incidentally, cannot tolerate being touched. It is also becoming clear that manhood is expected of him — and that, increasingly, he expects it of himself. So we reach a breaking point: Bianca, a blow up sex doll debuts in the Lindstrom’s life as Lars’ new girlfriend.

When I first heard about this film, I thought it would be yet another cheap attempt at a humorous “dude” film that uses a sex prop for laughs. With the odds stacked against them, all five main actors do genius work in overcoming the obvious joke by treating the object sex doll as an extension of, indeed, as a surrogate Lars. Lars allows himself to be psychologically seduced into speaking of his own issues to the doctor as though he were discussing Bianca’s life and concerns. And through a series of caring acts, friends and family finally give Lars the chance to become a real person. He is made to feel safe and loved in a world that neglected the boy whose mother died at his birth. I imagine there are a few young men out there who have suffered from similar emotional neglect common to the rearing process of “turning boys into men.” This film should certainly resonate with them and the rest of us who harbor at least one bone of empathy. It is Ryan Gosling who truly delivers us a Lars we begin to understand, a man who is not weak or truly crazy but copes using the only tools he likely developed as an “independent” child. Gosling’s character is, additionally, kind and generous to his doll and his friends alike, even while feeling frustrated and conflicted over his own evolution as a person and all that that requires. Incidentally, the filmmaker weaves some great double entendres through a lovely scene involving a teddy bear, another when Bianca doubles as a “live” mannequin, and at the end when the real girl notes that “there will never be anyone like her,” which spins out at least four different meanings at once.

However idealistic, this film reminds us that people still commit acts of kindness in the “real” world despite what the nightly news would have us believe. They bring over casseroles and “sit” when tragedy strikes, they have been known to forgive seemingly inexplicable weirdnesses, and they even give up their own pride of appearance to help someone who may or may not successfully work through whatever emotional crisis has befallen them. I realize the likelihood of an entire town enabling Lars’ delusion as a source of healing is nearly nonexistent; however, I don’t imagine that the director and screenwriter are delusional in depicting such optimism. To ask if they intended a realistic situation would be to ask if all cinema, and every narrative, is supposed to merely mirror what’s actually happening in the world. The fact that we get a happy ending is the transparent answer to such queries and does not detract from the event of the film and its implications for people who suffer and actually receive help and support. If anything, “Lars and the Real Girl” is subtly and encouragingly prescriptive. If you want real outcomes and reactions to people who struggle with long-term emotional issues and some of what that entails, rent a prison documentary. But if you want to avoid one more “he shot the school up with guns” story for an evening, try something as breathtaking as Lars, who quietly asks for help and, in the end, gets much more than a real girl.

FOGGED CLARITY

FICTION

Caitlin Horrocks
Dylan Brock

POETRY

Scott Hightower
Howie Good
Ana Bozicevic
Amy King
Niels Hav
Thax Douglas
Dawn Schout

VISUAL

Patrick Gunderson
Alexey Mamochkin
Dominik Kruger

POLEMICS

Ryan McCarl

AURAL

White Pines

INTERVIEWS

Danielle Evans
Amy King & Michael Tyrell
Joseph Scott

–For the entire issue, go to Fogged Clarity!

~~~~

ALSO,

I’m at The Living Room soon but seating is limited!

Five sets of music & two readings:

Samantha Farrell
Strand of Oaks
Karisa Wilson
Amir Darzi
Michael Tyrell
Amy King
Judson Claiborne

Sunday, September 13, 2009 @ 9 pm

The Living Room
154 Ludlow St.
New York, NY 10002

Click here for INFO
Click here for TICKETS

~~~~

“Poetry remains an interesting and pleasurable vehicle because it offers almost infinite formal freedom and flexibility. Poetry’s culturally marginal position is perversely advantageous I think. It’s a largely invisible agent.” –Lisa Robertson

Grandmas have generally outgrown trying to impress their pals and peers.  They often ‘tell it like it is’, or at least, speak their minds freely–minds that are vested with many years of experience-gleaned wisdom and invested with hope that the world they’ve endured and added to will be a better place for their children’s children.  At least, that’s what I think Margaret and Helen are trying to do if their blog posts are any proof:

“She mixes religion and politics like I mix gin and tonic but then calls for less government involvement.  Freedom from government is her battle cry until a vagina gets involved and then watch how much involvement she wants.  Show me a woman who is making a private medical decision to end a pregnancy and I’ll show you a Palin screaming for more government involvement.”

• You can’t deny the right to marry to some and then cheat on your spouse.   The right to happily marry belongs to all no matter how unhappy it makes you.
• You can’t tolerate the atrocities of one President for eight years and then assign the consequences to one who follows.  From this day forward everything was Reagan’s fault.
• The Christian Right should be forced to spend a week in Iran.  May the best radicals win.
• The Real Housewives should actually be housewives.

“No.  It’s called the Fox News Channel.  So someone explain to me where exactly is the news or even the journalists.   Anytime you try to pin someone down over at Fox for irresponsible journalism they claim that they are news commentators and not journalists.  You’re  on a news channel you moron so if you are going to be a commentator then you should be commenting on the news and not your misinformed opinion about the private medical decisions made between a woman and her doctor.”

AND so on… get there now. Enrich yourselves and delight.

“There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in…”

–from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

~~~~

A different kind of blog of sorts, more like news format a la Slate or Huffington Post, recently created by poet/writer, Meghan O’Rourke, that’s got it going on is Double X. The contributors are all younger feminists (mostly women), though I don’t know if they would each call themselves such.  Anyway, they’re actively writing daily about issues applicable to both men, women, and children with a progressive “sometimes we don’t know the answers” eye.  Have fun exploring and asserting!

~~~~

Poetry Events and Calendars in your Town or City

[Please post addt'l venues in comments to be added!]

~~~

AL

Alabama – http://www.writersforum.org/

~~~

CA

California / West Coast – http://www.poetryflash.org/

Bay Area, California — Spoken Word Listings

Glendale, California – http://www.poeticresearch.com/

Los Angeles, California – http://mommymommyreadingseries.blogspot.com/

Venice, California – http://www.beyondbaroque.org/

Northern California – http://www.coloredhorse.com

Northern California – http://www.artcenterukiah.org

San Clemente, California – http://www.casaromanticareadingseries.org

San Fransisco Bay, California– http://www.shampoopoetry.blogspot.com/

San Francisco Bay, California — http://www.poetryflash.org/

San Francisco, California — http://www.sfheart.com/ArtPoetryEvents.html

San Francisco State University – The Poetry Center Calendar

Santa Barbara, California — http://www.sbpoetry.net/events.html

Ukiah, California — http://www.coloredhorse.com/

~~~

CO

Denver, Colorado — http://www.copper-nickel.org/

~~~

CT

Connecticut Newsletter – http://www.ctpoetnewsletter.blogspot.com

Connecticut [John Jeffrey] - http://www.poetz.com/

Connecticut - Teen / Spoken Word / Slam

~~~

DC

Washington D.C. [Beltway] — http://washingtonart.com/

~~~

DE

Delaware – http://delawarescene.com

Northern Delaware – http://www.2ndsaturdaypoets.com/

~~~

GA

Athens, Georgia — Vox Reading Series

Atlanta, Georgia – http://www.poetryatlanta.com/

Augusta, Georgia — http://www.augustaarts.com/

Augusta, Georgia — Sandhill Writers Conference

Augusta, Georgia – Westobou Festival

~~~

FL

Central Florida – http://poetry.meetup.com/

~~~

IA

Des Moines, Iowa – http://www.drake.edu/

~~~

ID

Idaho — http://www.sageecosci.com/

~~~

IL

Chicago, Illinois

[Official Chicago Poetry Calendar] – http://www.chicagopoetrycalendar.org/

~~~

IN

Bloomington, Indiana — http://www.hartrock.net/

Notre Dame, Indiana – http://www.nd.edu/

Central Indiana – http://jlkatocalendar.blogspot.com/

~~~

KS

Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri – http://www.newletters.org/

~~~

KY

Louisville, Kentucky – http://www.inkyreadingseries.com

Kentucky – http://windpub.com/

~~~

LA

New Orleans, LA — http://www.17poets.com

New Orleans, Louisiana – http://seventeeneighteen.com/

~~~

ME

Portland, Maine [Port Veritas, North Star Cafe] – http://portveritas.org/

~~~

MA

Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts — http://bostonpoetry.blogspot.com/

Cambridge, Massachusetts — Small Animal Project

Pioneer Valley / Western Massachusetts — http://www.poetrynewscalendar.com/

Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts — http://www.collectedpoets.com

~~~

MD

Baltimore, Maryland — i.e. reading series

Baltimore, Maryland — 510 Reading Series

~~~

MN

St. Paul / Minneapolis, Minnesota — http://www.raintaxi.com

~~~

NH

New Hampshire — http://www.nhwritersproject.org/

~~~

NY

Albany, New York [Yes, Reading! series] — http://yesreading.wordpress.com/

Brooklyn, New York — Stain of Poetry

Brooklyn, New York — Franklin Park Reading Series

Buffalo, New York — http://www.justbuffalo.org/

Hudson Valley, New York – http://bardrovingreadingseries.blogspot.com/

Kingston, NY – http://www.cadmiumtextseries.blogspot.com/

Long Island, New York — http://www.poetz.com

New York City, New York — http://www.poetz.com

New York City, New York — Segue Reading Series

Rochester, New York — Writers and Books

~~~

NJ

New Jersey — http://www.poetswednesday.cjb.net/

~~~

NC

North Carolina — http://triangulationsreadings.blogspot.com/

~~~

OH

Cleveland, Ohio — http://www.the-lit.org/

Columbus, Ohio — http://www.puddinghouse.com

~~~

OK

Oklahoma — http://www.okpoetryportal.org

Oklahoma [listserv] — http://list.topica.com/lists/poetryartsok

~~~

OR

Portland, Oregon — http://portland.readinglocal.com/

~~~

PA

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania — http://www.bucknell.edu

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — http://www.madpoetssociety.com/

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – http://www.phillybookgeek.com/index.php

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — http://freecal.brownbearsw.com/PhillyPoetry

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — Chapter and Verse

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — The Kelly Writers House & Emergency Reading Series

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — Moles Not Molar Reading & Performance Series

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — http://pghpoetryexchange.pghfree.net/

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — http://www.poetz.com/

TN

Nashville, Tennessee — http://www.poetryhut.com/

~~~

TX

Austin, Texas [E-group] – mapofaustinpoetry@yahoogroups.com

Austin, Texas – http://calendar.yahoo.com/public/austinpoetry

~~~

VA

Virginia — http://www.poetrysocietyofvirginia.org/

~~~

VT

Vermont – Brattleboro Literary Festival

Vermont – Burlington Book Festival

Vermont - Local Listings

~~~

WA

Seattle, Washington – http://seattle.readinglocal.com/

~~~

WI

Madison, Wisconsin – http://madpoetry.org/

~~~~

CANADA

Canada – The League of Canadian Poets

Toronto, Canada — The Mercury Press – http://www.themercurypress.ca/

Toronto, Canada — Patchy Squirrel Listserv — patchysquirrel@gmail.com

Toronto, Canada — The Art Bar – http://www.artbar.org/

FRANCE

Paris, France — http://parisreadingsmonthlylisting.blogspot.com/

NETHERLANDS

Amsterdam – Words in Here

"The Burden of Happiness" by Orna Ben-Shoshan

Ekleksographia #2

Reviews

• by Alexander Dickow:
  • Catherine Daly’s Chanteuse/Cantatrice (Factory School, 2007)
  • Sampson Starkweather’s City of Moths (Boston: Rope-a-dope Press, 2008)
• by Adam Fieled:
  • Brooklyn Copeland’s Borrowed House: 15 Poems (Greying Ghost Press, 2009)
  • David Prater’s Morgenland (Vagabond Press, 2007)

Three new poems up at Unlikely Stories!

Stimulus Package, Survival of the Fittest, and Fake Memoir to Become Real Novel — loads more to read there. 

Happy 4th of July !

~~~~

We have the same neck….

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Chicago Poetry!

I was in Chicago once for AWP.  I liked the place.  Wish I had more time to explore.  Lots of great poets there too.  I’m thinking aloud here due to recent incidents that have brought Chicago and its poetry scene to my attention.  If you’re actually interested in just how asinine one tiny pseudo-poetry promoter can be, check out Daniela Olszewska’s blog, Jenny Boully’s blog, and Becca Klaver’s blog.  And for those of you who might think C.J. Laity’s apology to Kristy Bowen is sincere, know that he has started a series of hate blogs dedicated to her.  Some apology.  Go twiddle yourself and stew in your woman-hating juices, Laity.

Moreover, if you want to know something about Chicago and the poetry that great city offers, visit the official Chicago Poetry Calendar here. Or check out what publishers like Kristy Bowen are doing here.

Likewise, visiting or living in New York City?  Go no further – the New York City poetry calendar awaits.

Bible Belt much?  Atlanta, GA calendar!  How about further south?  Austin, TX po po calendar!  What’s that other coast?  San Francisco, CA Poetry Calendar!  You mean LA and Buffalo have a poetry scene too?   Oh, I realize I’ve missed oodles of cities and scenes and calendars, but that’s the good thing about blogs — if you want to list your site, pop it in the comments box, please!

Except you, CJL .  “What cracker is this same that deafs our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?” – Shakespeare

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Frightened Rabbit makes the kids dance above.

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Ashok and Adam Are At “It” Again…

You know, that task we fear and dread, supposedly, as a society.

Enjoy!

ASHOK — two excerpts: “The singularity of the leaf as death is distorted by our labeling the wind.

…And consider that we are beholding a bird now, beholding us.”

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ADAM — two excerpts: Non-poets that look to poetry generally want to see poems that actually say something.

…The Other is rendered imaginatively, but always in a kind of negative context: we do not connect, we do not relate, despite these bodies which we share.

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THIS BLOG IS ON TEMPORARY HIATUS WHILE I SPEND LOADS OF TIME EDITING, AMONG OTHER LONG NEGLECTED TASKS!

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The 2009 Spring Issue of Redheaded Stepchild is up, featuring work by

Alex Grant
Alexander Lumans
Amy King
Ann Neuser Lederer
Carol Potter
Cheryl A. Townsend
Christian Ward
Diane Lockward
Joan Wiese Johannes
Kate Bernadette Benedict
Lana Hechtman Ayers
Pat Riviere-Seel
Richard Krawiec
Terry Wright
Wendy Vardaman

~~Redheaded Stepchild:  a home for rejected poems ~~

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Posted in Sexy Tagged: Alex Grant, Alexander Lumans, amy king, Ann Neuser Lederer, Carol Potter, Cheryl A. Townsend, Christian Ward, Diane Lockward, Joan Wiese Johannes, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Pat Riviere-Seel, poems, Poetry, Publications, Redheaded Stepchild, Richard Krawiec, Terry Wright, Wendy Vardaman ]]>