Thanks to Doug Oliver for reasserting the necessity of some discussion,
some real address, of the disparity in reactions to men's and women's
work; as Doug suggests, this really is glaringly different in the UK than
in the US, there are so many women writers here (US) who are not only
producing excellent work but are being recognized for having done so.
Many of these women are fairly young, too -- again, young British women
are never discussed, hardly even identified. CCCP has worked some good in
brining over Lisa Jarnot, Lee Ann Brown and Jennifer Moxley in the last
two years, and there are many other young writers they could invite in
future (and I shall, when back in Cambridge, try to make sure that they
do). Interested Brits might consider looking at some of the following (a
brief and fairly random list): Ange Mlinko, Carol Mirakove, Eleni
Sikelianos, Prageeta Sharma, Deirdre Kovac, Juliana Spahr, Sianne Ngai,
Andrea Brady, none of whom (with the possible exceptions of Juliana and
Andrea) seem to have been announced in the UK, and all of whom are
writing with an advanced interest that's really and overtly shaping the
development of new poetries hereabouts. There are MANY more.
I do not feel that I have worked harder at making contacts here in
the states than I did during my years in Cambridge, yet I would be hard
pressed to draw up a list of British women writers, young or not,
anywhere near as long as several American lists which leap to view.
Actually, the same can be said for young male writers, the ratio is
similarly lopsided. I'd suggest a few reasons:

1. Publishing networks in the US are a whole different
phenomenon -- people really go out of their way to buy books, to
speculate, to throw open their arms and work with what they look for and
what they find that they've found, there are so many presses promoting and
thereby encouraging the work of women writers -- presses with good
distribution and production quality -- it should boggle a British mind.
I'm really spoilt for choice here, can't buy the books I'd like not
because they're few and far between but because there are just too many,
it's a pandemic. I know through my own experience with Barque (I imagine
it's similar for other presses?) that the British readers, even that
trench-full of writers expressing some interest in new work zealously, are
slow as sloths to buy. This is NOT because they cannot afford books.
Most pamphlets are 1.50 - 2.00. I believe they just can't be bothered,
and would rather benefit from an ostensible amplitude of expressed
interest than from such an interest.

2. MFA programs. They're everywhere here, well funded, well
attended, committed to anti-discriminatory admission procedures. these
often seem to feed directly into the presses, which operate in some cases
largely through links with such programs. The Waldrops' Burning Deck and
the Brown program, eg.

3. I believe precariously that there is a latent nationalism in US
verse, including that of pronouncedly anti-nationalistic young writers,
a kind of installed motive presaging the ascendancy of American writing
relative to European and particularly of course to British. This never
occurs as a rebuff - quite the contrary, I have made many poet friends
here, have been included in a cooperative press, given readings in various
areas of the country, have, precisely, been extended a hospitality and
generosity that any British group would be vexed to deliver. I use
the word 'group' advisedly - there really are GROUPS here, e-lists
designed and operating as collectives with organized intentions and
propensities. I am included in all this, in fact. This latent
nationalism, if that IS what it is, is of course monstrously effective,
and helps to clarify somewhat the practically dichotomized British
circumstances, which are pervaded by a nihilistic hopefulness struggling
to become more covert and by rebarbative and atomizing silences. How many
of the pamphlets released in Britain recently have had a proper review?
How many of these reviews were by people unknown to the poet, or known
only slightly? How many were of women's work? How many of the reviewers
were women? I really do think that the openness and collective impulses
manifested here (in NY especially) have caused an admirable redress in
the balance of gender, even if dinosaurs like the Buffalo list are still
infested with banal parasitic masculinizers. BUT: how would such a drive,
such energy and communication, work in Britain? Would the nationalism be
considerably less latent there -- is an anticipation of this possibility
actually built in to our sense of attenuated community, disciplining us
into a reticence not easily evaded?


Well, I'll be back on the strip on tuesday, we shall see...


If anyone is interested in getting hold of the work of any of the writers
mentioned above, or in seeing a list of what's afoot more generally, e- me
and I'll get Rod Smith to send you a catalogue from Washington.


k



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