I know that you would have liked a different contribution, but since I have
been a member of Poetryetc for decades by now, I can easily remember that
Rebecca Seiferle, woman and qualified poet and translator, was sent off list
by the then List Manager who was a woman, not to mention Passananti, not to
mention the quantity of poets who were kicked off without any regard by the
same List Owner who now says something very different of her past career. I
also remember that the same member who was a List manager never answered
Judy Prince's messages, but now finally discovers a vivid spark of
friendship.

This said, I will not answer any other messages on the topic.
My best wishes, Anny Ballardini


On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks Judy, Chris and Catherine  -
>
> There are a number of women who post to Buffalo Poetics, including Amy
> King, who blogs most interestingly on gender. And there's more
> participation by women on other lists I'm on.
>
> I only ask because Poetryetc was once a place where women posted,
> although their numbers were always fewer than men. When John Kinsella,
> Randolph Healy, and various others, including me, managed the list, we
> enforced a simple but effective policy that forbade bigotry of any
> kind, such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and personal abuse. It was
> never perfect, no lists are, but for many years it opened a space
> where discussion of many kinds - often impassioned discussion,
> sometimes just silly - was possible.
>
> Catherine wrote:
>
> "Trying as all this is, it seems that somewhere in this lack of female
> participation in discussions purportedly about poetry (but rarely about
> poetry) lurks the answer as to why art communication by women is so
> comparatively rare, so rarely called good, so unadvocated.  Dunno, it has
> been about 14 years of this sort of thing for me, and I'm still trying to
> figure it out."
>
> Absolutely spot on. It's the same old arguments over decades.
>
> I think it's both simple and complicated. There's an interesting
> discussion going on in the theatre world, in the UK but especially in
> Australia, attempting to address an appalling gender gap in the
> productions of women writers and directors. (The women having this
> discussion are far from shrinking violets, but the same issues,
> especially vexed feelings about entitlement, come up). What it's
> attempting to address is endemic sexism and the invisibility of
> privilege to those who possess it. That's a long and difficult
> conversation. And we've all had it, over and over again. In every
> sense of that phrase.
>
> xA
>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>



-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
Friedrich Nietzsche

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