Milwaukee, Wisconsin resident CHARLES P. RIES has written narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews all of which have appeared in over 140 print and electronic publications.RIES received 3 Pushcart Prize nominations and read his poetry on National Public Radio's Theme and Variations, broadcast over 70 NPR affiliates. CHARLES P. RIES authored THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memoriy, and is author of 5 books of poetry — the most recent , The Last Time (The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona).
RIES is poetry editor for Word Riotand on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/
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CHARLES P. RIES
Are Women Underrepresented in the Small Press?
I had completed reading a poetry anthology entitled, Baby Beat Generation
& The 2nd San Francisco Renaissance when I noticed how few women
contributors were represented. I didn't understand why this would be the case,
so I asked Kaye MacDonough whose work was featured about the status of
women in the poetry small press, North Beach and the 1970's:
“I think the North Beach lifestyle itself was hard on women. You had
to be able to live poor and like it -- handle yourself in a bar, walk alone
on the street at any hour, and rely on no one. You had to take care
that you weren't an alcohol or drug casualty -- and that you could keep
up with all those poets and what they read, and they read plenty. You
had to be able to read your poetry to rooms full of mostly men who
were not shy about giving you feedback. The womanizing was a definite
minus. Where I came from, women did not go about unescorted at night,
let alone into a bar, so North Beach wasn't exactly a place to settle down
and start a family-- I'm not sure I knew what in the heck I was after –
alcohol certainly played a role. I think I wanted to live like a man – a man
who was a poet.”
Maybe MacDonough's experience was just 'North Beach" and the 70's, but
when I looked at the popular Beat poets of the 50's and 60's almost none are
women. I wondered if things had changed? I believe some sectors of our
poetry world are still dominated by a male ethos. Yet I also believe women,
write, read, and buy more poetry. I see a growing number of female editors;
particularly in the booming electronic magazines sector, but it seems to me
that men are more aggressive about submitting work and getting work
published than women. I also believe that women are better represented in
the academic MFA side of poetry, but still, I had this feeling there are fewer
female voices in the poetry small press than male voices. So I invited poets,
publishers and editors to send me their thoughts about what I felt was a race,
gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic free zone called 'the poetry
small press'. As you might imagine, the replies were varied. Some agreed,
and, some disagree with my assumption.
Here are a few observations that I pulled from over forty pages of responses:
CL Bledsoe ~ Ghoti Magazine
Our first few issues featured more female than male poets. The reason
for this is that we solicited female poets heavily. In recent issues, we
haven't solicited as much and the result is that we've gotten more
male poets over the transom. What does this mean? Women aren't
sending us poetry unless we ask for it. So why don't women send
us poetry? If I use the model of myself (a male) and my fiancée (a
female) then I notice that I will send work any and everywhere, and
she is much more selective. I also tend to write more than she does,
though her work is often stronger and more polished. Many women
writers I know are very selective about where they send their work.
The idea of social roles has been brought up; that women are still
often relegated to the home and many women have children and so
can't send work out/must be more selective. But the thing I find much
more disturbing is the lack of minority submissions.
Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D ~ poet
We all have trouble getting published regularly (who doesn't I guess), but
most do get published from time to time if they send their poems out! And
there I think is the issue. Many of the women I know who write poetry
either don't send their poems out, or don't send them out as regularly (let
alone relentlessly) as most of the male poets I know.
Liz Bradfield ~ Broadsided
So many women got their foot in the door with the vigorous feminist press
movement of the late 70s/early 80s. Some of those journals are still in
existence. On the other hand, the beat poet movement was largely male.
What tradition is more influential to today's independent literary journals?
The question is complex/nuanced and far reaching into the history of
women in literature and society.
Karla Huston ~ poet
Several years ago, as part of my master's thesis, I interviewed four
women poets: Stellasue Lee, Denise Duhamel, Naomi Shihab Nye
and Shara McCallum. Stellasue Lee spoke about this very issue.
This interview was published in Margie, The American Review
of Poetry, issue two and can be found online. Lee told me
that as poetry editor of Rattle, she would publish more women
writers, but fewer women writers submitted. When I asked Lee
recently if this were still true, she said that the overwhelming number
of submissions came from male writers. I do think that some women
are happy to just write and not play the whole publishing game.I've
never encountered malicious bias. If it's out there, I may be naive to it.
Marie Lecrivain ~ Poeticdiversity
I don't believe that women are better poets, but I do believe that women
poets need to get off their collective asses and start submitting work in
greater numbers. The ratio of women to men submitting work to poetic
diversity is 1 to 3. I also don't believe that women improve their craft with
age just because they are women. What I do believe is something my mother
Michelle Lecrivain (a painter and quilt artist) once told me: "Women have
been creating art in their everyday life since the beginning of time. It's as
natural to our sex as breathing, but we're not taught to look at our creation
as art. We're only taught to look at our creations as 'labours'."
Maybe it doesn't matter that women are less represented in poetry small press
if they don't want to be. After all, the genders are different; and getting published
may not matter as much to women as it does to men. But the number and
variety of replies to my query – 40 of the 60 poets, editors and publishers I
contacted responded - suggests equal opportunity is on people's minds.
In the mid-70's an act of congress called Title Nine required schools
to invest as much in girls athletics as they did boys athletics. Not surprisingly
the numbers of girls participating in athletics has grown to numbers never
imagined in the 70's. Equally interesting to me is that enrollment of women
in universities is rising steadily and has now outpaced men. Maybe when we
give a generation of women the same access and the same belief in themselves
as we have traditionally given our men, they will not hesitate to compete, even
in the poetry small press – if they choose to.
I am not sure we have arrived at a time when we can just write well and forget
about gender (or race for that matter), when it comes to equal representation.
The Beats hardly had women in their ranks. The poets of the 70's didn't do
much better. Today we can look around and say we've made progress, there
are more female poets getting published, but have we arrived? I don't think
so. I don't believe that in 2006 the doors to well written poetry are as open
to female poets as they are to their male counterparts.
So what do we do about it? To those of you who think we have arrived and
good writing has prevailed over sexism – nothing. To those of us who feel
there is still a ways to go, doors to open, and opportunities to give; we must
take an active role to make sure the poetry of talented men and women is
brought before the widest audience possible. Talent alone is not enough to
create equal opportunity. We must all participate in leveling the playing field.
NOTE: I would be happy to send the over forty pages of responses
to my query about women in the small press as an e-mail attachment
to anyone requesting it.
Copyright 3006, all rights retained by the poet |
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