Comments on: https://webbish6.com/2104/ Jeannine Hall Gailey's Poetry Blog Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:43:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: jeannine https://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1044 Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:43:00 +0000 http://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1044 Dear Jen,
I think she’s just saying that editors need to question their own “this makes me feel cozy” feelings and make sure they are really taking the best – not just the most familiar-feeling, most comfortable-making, poetry by people just like them. I mean, I’m a chick, I tend to be more interested in women’s poetry than men’s. (Sorry guys. Kiss kiss!) But if I’m the editor of a big-ole-powerful poetry mag, and I’ve got an issue where it’s an 80 percent female issue, for instance, maybe I’d need to take a look at WHY I was taking so many poems from women and not so many from men. It would only be resposible to say, hey, maybe I’ve got too many WASP-y poems, because I use WASP-y language in my own work, maybe I need to get a little diverse. So it’s an exercise is self-knowledge, and not editing lazily, that I think she’s advocating.

]]> By: jeannine https://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1043 Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:40:00 +0000 http://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1043 This comment has been removed by the author.

]]> By: Jennifer https://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1042 Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:15:00 +0000 http://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1042 Maybe I’m completely missing the point. But something about this — “Shaping each of my edited journals or books, I have paid central attention to race as well as gender.” — disquiets me. Perhaps she meant that as an editor, she winnowed down the slush to the pool of submissions she would be equally proud to publish and THEN looked at gender and race. In the service of balance and diversity. Which I suppose is admirable. I would be curious to know what trumped what, though, and if she considered the author’s demographic when approaching their work as opposed to afterwards. Naive, I know, but I guess I just see the editor’s task as presenting the best work available, period. Of course, that’s a subjective standard too, whichever way you slice it, and personal bias will inevitably come to bear but if a publication is serving a political agenda instead of an artistic one, I’d sure like to know up front. As in, “Year’s Best Poetry Representing As Few White Males As Possible”.

]]> By: shanna https://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1041 Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:26:00 +0000 http://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1041 yeah, thanks, i’m not on that list. many of the same points i’ve seen in other discussions, but she’s articulated them very succinctly here. 🙂

personally, i have decided to be a little more proactive in my submissions….as soon as i have something to submt.

]]> By: ka https://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1040 Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:22:00 +0000 http://webbish6.com/2104/#comment-1040 Thanks for posting this.

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