EXCERPT: “Without volunteers, VIDA would not exist. In fact, we created a one-page handout for the release of this past count because ‘What can I do to help?’ has become a recurring mantra indicative of how much larger VIDA is than the faces the organization has come to be associated with. VIDA has tapped into…
The WOM-PO (Discussion of Women’s Poetry) List was started in December 1997 by Annie Finch with an invitation to a small group of poets, critics, and lovers of women’s poetry. These people in turn invited other people to join, and the list has grown into a well-regarded international listserve by spreading through these networks. In…
I cannot fathom that Walt Whitman was the first to write on a variety of controversies typically attributed to “Song of Myself,” including the complexities of slavery, the overt hand of eroticism, and the soul beyond the confines of religion, atrocities of war, etc. In fact, a number of writers come easily to mind who…
Read more WILL THE REAL WALT WHITMAN PROBLEM PLEASE STAND UP? TOUCHING PERFECT BODIES WITH HIS MIND
While people like Cate Marvin, Susan Schultz, & Craig Santos Perez have queried similarly in the past, speculating on a variety of causes for rejection, proposal applicants are still left wondering at the end of the process each year, where we went wrong. Did bias play a role? Are the panelists and I not noteworthy…
“But What About the Nipples?” A Nice Conversation (Pt. 1) From Roxane Gay: Blake Butler, Kate Zambreno, Amy King and I recently had an interesting and lengthy conversation about gender, publishing and so much more, prompted by lots of things including the recent, and largely excellent discussion in Blake’s “Language Over Body” post about the…
So HTMLGIANT, I’ve been told, serves a mostly young male community in its comments sections. I wasn’t sure that was true, but apparently, that’s the hope: On HTMLGIANT, Blake Butler (who is also the editor of HTML) pimped a new mag, “We Are Champion,” that his work appears in; Elisa Gabbert pointed out that it’s…
EXCERPTS in response to my “The What Else” essay: That is, it is not shaped by a coherent/canonized value system that’s purposed ideologically against a heteronormative poetic tradition… It should exist outside the power structure that contains that discourse, but become accessible by readerly politicized positions… Queerness haunts the machine, articulating differences. We don’t know what…
Like it or not, parallels exist between the two separate-but-similar battles for civil rights. I received some flack the other day for posting the title statement on my Facebook page (“Gay is the new black.”), and in turn, learned there is some resistance against aligning the two movements for civil rights primarily because of fear…
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”…
Read more The Weenie Roast – Ingredients? Not How Long, But What’s in It…
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…
Read more Why Weren’t Any Women Invited To Publishers Weekly’s Weenie Roast?
AMY KING 