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Quickly - > >Well that's quite true - the piece itself I think was a good hearted >attempt to think around some of these issues - (it was Andrew Duncan, from >Angel Exhaust and someone posted a long quotation earlier in the week) AD >was saying that these are issues that need to be addressed and his >intention was 'on the side of women' - but I think he was so busy watching >his nightclub singer he didn't watch what he was saying! I essentially agree with you Liz about the good-heartedness (the joke was that AD said that the separation of body and mind led to either pornography or Christianity - and your sketch of prostitution led me - ah well, doesn't matter -) and feel similarly ambivalent. Perhaps unintentionally he presses a certain discomfort harder, as a result. > Is there any escape from the consuming male gaze >which assumes that the body is offered up for its valuing alone? > >we could just ignore it! (I know that's simplistic - but I am kind of >tired of this double-bind, and really what else can we do but get on with >what we want to make?) That's kind of where I ended up, after circling around and around... but every now and then I bump my nose on the same question(s) and realise they haven't gone away. Sometimes indeed they still have power to hurt and distort... certainly I have no intention of taking orders at 40. Or of stopping writing poems, though often I feel that decision has very little to with me. The central questions as far as poetry goes are, I agree, one's own business, and about a practice. Best Alison