Helen
Well I don't think you're the only one to have ever been rejected by Meanjin, but
that doesn't mean I disagree with what you say. While this particular journal has
had its share of strong female poetry editors - Judith Rodriguez, Carol Hull, etc -
it still remains a predominantly intellectual one; that is, anti-emotional. That's
not essentially a 'male' thing, but a result of our dear old cultural cringe which
delights in publishing poems with absurd ten-syllable words which are, frankly,
silly and unreadable. Your poem is visceral and fleshy, and when a publication is
trying its damn hardest to come across as intelligent, post-colonial and post-
modern, then poems like 'Let's Belly Roll' (and all of my poems, for that) end up in
the rejection pile. I'm not all that sure what the differences between a female and
a male voice are, but I'd like to see them blurred and extinguished. I'm currently
writing in the voice of a teenage girl. A university cultural theory lecturer thinks
that I'm gay for doing this. I don't take offence, but I still haven't the courage
to perform any of my 'Joan' poems in readings. The audiences will laugh, thinking
that I'm some funny cross-dresser or something. and what I'm writing is absolutly
NOT comedy - it's about war, sexual violence and resistance. The sad truth is that
once I've finished my poems (a narrative) I'll probably have to submit under a
woman's name. And then I'll have the feminists on my back. But that's nothing new
for me.
Ali
---- Original Message ----
From: Helen Hagemann
Date: Sun 2/4/01 18:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: I am woman, hear my voice...
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