Fine, Mairead, the paradox in this discussion is that I and my poem are
actually in agreement about the points about associations of defecation and
childbirth, I was trying to use the comparison to express a sense of
disjunction in our world, whether or not I did so successfully is a moot
point, but I emphasised that it was an early draft, and as you say, you
haven't read it, it makes discussion rather difficult re the poem, or
attempted poem. I think the piece I posted today is rather more successful
on the same lines, although there are elements I would question in it. But I
don't know how we can talk about a draft that one party hasn't read.
I'm very aware of the deficiencies of attitude that I, like all others, can
have, but also I'm wary of these labels. They can be used in a most
perfidious way. Sexism is indubitably a fact in society, but it can occur
from women as well as well as men, I recall last year when I was briefly in
hospital when the off-hand and cursory nurses reacted to a guy with
superstar looks who came in with fawning attention, the people ignored in
this were mainly women patients btw, they treated them like dogs,
particularly the elderly, one of the saddest things I saw was a woman
patient who was dying of cancer, her alleged nurse was busy trying to flirt
with this guy while I had to get up and adjust the poor woman's gown as
she'd exposed herself in her agony.
To carry on with the anecdote, the majority of the consultants were male, so
there was a kind of sexual hierarchy, but it wasn't absolute, which is the
point I'm trying to make.
All the Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mairead Byrne" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 3:16 AM
Subject: Re: resignations
Actually, Dave, I didn't read your poem. The rhetoric, if you could
call it such, was influenced
by the subject lines of posts, Alison's points about defecation and
childbirth, with which I agree (Nancy Huston has an excellent essay
called "The Matrix of War," on war as a substitute for childbirth, which
I read with great interest some years ago), also slang, also repugnance
at the sheer disgusting waste and laying waste of this war. As far as
sexism is concerned, or racism or any other ism, it seems good enough
practice to concede: "Sexist? Oh yeah, I probably am, I'm sorry," or
"Racist? Yup, that's me, hard to escape one's culture" or "Ageist?
Yes, I am occasionally." I admit, in the deep recesses of my
skull and home, racist, sexist, ageist(what a funny word, I must be
spelling it wrong) attitudes give it a twirl every now and then (even in
the classroom, goddammit, where I consciously work against them). Why
is it so important to defend yourself? Anyway,
I hope you don't mind me disclaiming your trigger.
Mairead
>>> [log in to unmask] 04/07/03 20:48 PM >>>
PS Al
I notice that my undoubtedly artistic imperfect rough draft of 'The Joys
of
Shit' has triggered a number of poems on the same lines, curiously
enough
all the poems have been by women. Strange that, for a sexist poem. I
must be
a very odd kind of sexist to link into how women feel in that way.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
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