The party...

...was a lot of fun, & we sold a million* books, ate 200 chicken wings***, were seranaded by a giant ear & a beautiful poet singing Conway Twitty, awarded/received a trophy for "asskicking the yahoos", & made some new friends.

& there are photos, probably not very good ones,** to be posted later.

But right now I go in search of eggs [scrambled tofu***] of the brunch variety.

* Only a slight exaggeration
** Phone-cam, real camera still broken

***[This post has been modified because I have since gone vegan.]

See you tonight in Brooklyn...

Click if it's too small to read.

WTF is wrong with Blogger?

I keep getting old views of this page, despite clearing caches, using different browsers, etc.

Something is stuck in a tube somewhere. Maybe it's my webhost, because the exact same post shows up fine over here. (That's hosted by a different company.)

Can you see the invitation to Jennifer L. Knox's book party this Saturday below?

If not, here's the scoop, text-only style:

Join us as we chell-o-brate the release of
DRUNK BY NOON
a brand-spankin' new book of poems by
JENNIFER L. KNOX

Saturday, November 10, 2007
7-9 PM
at STAIN BAR
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
766 Grand Street
(L train to Grand, 1 block west)

With your host ADA LIMÓN
Featuring MIXT TAPE,
FEATHER UNDERGROUND and more.
Plus yo-yo tricks, interpretive dance, Todd Colby,
a brief recitative, and other rare entertainments.
Chicken wings. Karaoke may follow.

Barbara Jane on (the myth of) feminine reticence, distrust, innovation, & then some

OK, so now, Sunday afternoon, having done...

...most of my weekend cooking and cleaning and errands, and having been to the gym, and having decided to take the rest of the day to rest, I have finished both articles and all the blog responses I can find.

So now I can say that I mostly agree with Stephanie and Juliana's essay. (And I found myself puzzled, for mostly the same reasons they did, by both the claims and the conclusions drawn from them, in Jennifer Ashton's.)

Like Stephanie and Juliana, I'm surprised by the numbers.

I especially identify with their questions/remaining uncertainties, including their assertion that the numbers alone tell only one story, and that even statistical equity would not necessarily indicate that "feminism is irrelevant or outdated or just plain over or boring or pathetic or whiny" or that a 50/50 ratio in the mags/anthologies/prizes "necessarily means that these things are feminist or progressive." And when they said "we had a constant feeling that we had better and more exciting, i.e. non-gender specific, work that we wished we could be doing," I was like I KNOW!

The most important part of their article though (which they also say themselves--how could anybody miss that?) is not the number crunching but the owning up--to our own ambivalences about what feminism is or does or should be or should do, our complicity and "first-world privilege," and our failure(s) to be the change we wish to see in the world.*

And when I say "our" I do definitely mean "my."

The essay ends with a call for suggestions about how poets and/or communities of poets can do more to engage the living/working conditions of women in a national/international arena.

That's a good fucking question (which a handful of people attempt to answer in the last section of the piece, including Kasey, Anne, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Eileen Myles, &tc.)

I'm gonna keep thinking about that.

To order a copy of this issue of the Chicago Review (currently the only way to read the essays), go here. (The Mid-Manhattan branch of the NYPL does not yet have the Autumn 2007 issue, but should get it soon; but hey, maybe your library is quicker.)

* Uh, to quote Gandhi as quoted by the issue of Yoga Journal I flipped through on the ellipitical this morning.


UPDATE! The Chicago Review has made the essays available on their website (linked above). Rocking. (Be sure to read the notes too, particularly the methodology section, which addresses already some of the issues raised in a few responses elsewhere.)

On purity

Says Ange: "Most women I know who withhold their work are proud of not hustling, not playing the game, keeping themselves pure."

Update: use this link instead. (So much for permalinks at the Harriet blog.) This repost has a different URL and more comments.

Yeah, it's a neat trick, isn't it? Convincing women to internalize their own marginalization by "disapproving" anytime they ask for the attention of a reader or reviewer simply by putting their work out there, as if that's not the most natural thing in the world for a writer to be doing. Sniping at them for their ambition or "careerism" or self-promotion. Telling them they are "naturally reticent" or "ambivalent about ambition" so that if they are not it becomes clear they should consider themselves freakish.

Having spent the last year and a half reading 19th century books addressed to young women filled with loads of advice on remaining chaste, appearing ladylike, etc., I am struck (as Ange is) by the word choice: purity.

I have too much to do..

...too much to finish-reading-slash-tell-you-what-I-think-about Juliana Spahr & Stephanie Young's article in the Chicago Review, ditto for Jennifer Ashton's in the same issue, ditto for the blog discussions about the articles and surrounding issues at Lorraine's, Simon's, and now at the Poetry Foundation blog. I also don't have time to tell you about the most unintentionally hilarious thing I have ever read on the internet, involving "encouraging women to write and applauding them when they do."

(I will take a second to say I cannot stand the phrase "I applaud" which always sounds insufferably condescending. Depsite this revulsion, I'm sure I've used it myself. Never again.)

I have too much to do to write new poems, or send old ones out. I can't even manage to feel guilty about these things. Even though I am supposed to.

The arguments about whether the internet is killing books, or digital printing resulting in crapbooks, luckily, are already over, despite some dogged participants not yet realizing it. So that saves me some time.

But I will count nothing, plan nothing, do nothing, say nothing much.

"I ain't got no kids" either, so that's not my challenge/dilemma/limitation/excuse.

I am simply too busy. With, you know, stuff.

Like sending out review copies of my book and Jen's book (& crossing my fingers a few women respond in print or pixels, you know, like in public, to either).

& helping with a feature for Delirious Hem.

& cooking: mashed turnips, a minestrone, a kohlrabi pudding, salmon with roasted-poblano-spinach-sauce.

& reading: Ben Friedlander's new collection, Laurel Snyder's and Reb Livingston's debuts, and that behemoth (and very masculine) novel Infinite Jest.

Last night I dumped my poetry "career" to go on a date with my husband. Because I like hanging out with him.

But maybe later.

If I feel like it.