Yesterday I read an article by Phil Brown (Silkworm) considering Facebook and its use in the poetry world. He made some interesting points about Facebook as something we didn't see coming, I couldn't agree more. The problem of course is that Facebook is a place where :
1) Actual friends, even family, may chat
2) At the same time Facebook is used by writers and publishers as a place to make people aware of their product.
Consequently, Facebook can be an odd mix between business and pleasure. The good news is Facebook has changed how writers find out about events and developments in the literary world- its all right there in one big mall, writer after writer pushing a flyer into your hand. The downside is, we may find ourselves at a business a conference in our pyjamas.The way we speak to our friends is never going to be the same as the self promoting tone of confidence and boost in which we are expected to present ourselves to fellow writers and publishers. Facebook lacks an ability to categorize, to spilt an account into sections of column A) friends and column B) business acquaintances. It would be a useful tool. It is becoming increasingly necessary.
Facebook has enabled writers and publishers to find out about events and opportunities, but most importantly sell their wares. The plus side is writers no longer have to be as isolated. They make 'friends' with other writers, and may receive encouragement, find readers. It will be rare to find a writer who acknowledges there may be a down side to this. As Phil Brown says, we don't really consider our internet comments to the extent we would our poetry or prose. Would we write a review for a newspaper for example without backing up our argument? Would we review something that we can't be even handed about? Would we say something snide about a fellow writer? On Facebook (perhaps elsewhere on the net also) it all seems OK, as long as we use a little smiley face :) or a wink ;)
It does get tiring though, so many books plugged all day long. I seem to spend more time reading about how good someone is than reading their work, see their acomplishments more often than the goods that back it up. As a reader, I don't get much from reading about how good a writer is, I sort of get tired of it. I'd rather read the work. As a writer, I don't get much from seeing who is mates with who and who's not. And as a person, well the merging of facebook of real friends and family with business and colleagues means it's less fun, hard to be honest if you're having a bad day when you are supposed to have your business face on. If you can be a salesman all the time facebook may be for you. Not me. Life's too short to think in status updates.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Monday 9 August 2010
The inherent sexism of 'chick lit' poetry, a response to AS Gill
The issue of the ethics of anonymous lit crit aside, let's get down business about your specific criticism of my book.
Here it is in all its nasty glory:
'And I'm sorry, but from the sample you have on the site of Angela Readman's work, I am not at all impressed: it seems gimmicky, titillating, and far too conversational/slangy for my tastes. I just don't get the post modern mantra that everything, including poetry, the most soulful of artforms, should be sexed up. It immediately puts me off and Readman's pose, her book title, and many poem titles and themes do absolutely nothing for me at all so I'd be unlikely to look any further. This is not what I would look for in poetry I'm afraid - there's enough of this kind of thing in more popular mediums these days. It just reminds me of the chick-lit poetry of Clare Pollard. Sorry. Life's too short.' ASGill
I won't pretend this hasn't destroyed me Mr 'Gill'. I'll be honest, your remarks are literary wounds from which I don't know if I will recover. I want to address some of your remarks in particular, particularly this my work being 'titillating' and invoking some 'post modern mantra that poetry, the most soulful of artforms (forgive me, this is where I spit tea from my mouth with no sexual innuendo whatsoever, purely from rising laughter) should be sexed up.' I will let you off with gimmicky MrGill, as I can see how someone who doesn't see what I am doing may well pounce on the theme of the book and find this superficial reason to damn it.
Here are my points regarding these issues:
1) Nowhere on my book do I attempt to disguise what the book is about. The blurb states this a book that includes the sex industry (I'd say it is then a safe assumption that there may be some sex in it.) Frankly, why you bothered reading it when this is clear, given your own very specific views on poetry, I have no idea.
2) Ok, then, so the setting of the book involves sex. However, I am confused as to how in any way my work is 'titillating' and 'sexing things up.' Readers who have read the book carefully have disagreed and have looked beyond the setting to see the content. Yes, shocking that there may be, one or two (and one or two poems only) contain actual sex. Titillating? A poem that deals with a naive narrators of an experience that is questionably date rape? Really? A poem that deals with a step father making sexual innuendo to a teenage girl? A poem that sees said girl walking along and even a taxi driver making overtly sexist comments? I'm glad you think this is sexy and titillating. The fact that some people are unable to see beyond the external circumstance/ appearance of women, to the wider issues of their life stories, moments in their lives and media influences reminds me why I needed to write this book.
3) Trust me, if I wanted to be titillating I really could. There are dozens of opportunites to, particularly within the subject matter (douche products, implants, lube. cfome shots, the whole kabang.) I did not include such things because, circumstance or not, the book is about humanising that we have sexualised, telling stories about people.) Finding humanity. I'll take a poem like Bodil and the Pigs as an example, if I was going to be 'sexing things up' or 'titillating' I would write about this character as a woman making disturbing porn films. Instead, I wrote a sequence about a child and her parents, her alcoholic father, her religious upbringing. There is no sex here, only rural scenes, only a mute sort of buried sadness.
4) I see you use the term 'chick lit' poetry. a) This is a sexist term to start with b) what exactly is chick lit? Forgive my ignorance, I never read it, but isn't chic lit actually work about women, light, glamorous, comedic in tone, romantic and , sadly, all too often involving shopping? You may well have a different palate to mine and many women if a girl removing her braces with a pair of pliers, sleeping on an old couch under the freeway or being coerced into sex, leaves the sugary taste of chic lit in your mouth.
I can only assume then that by 'chick lit' poetry you are referring to 1) the gender of the writer 2) the fact she is, unappogeticaly, writing about women.
This term is loaded with a great many assumptions that include factors being taken into consideration about the age and sex of the writer. (Oh, yes, BTW thank you so much for putting my name in the same sentence as Clare Pollard, I have alot of respect for her. I've been hoping to introduce my work to some of the people who enjoy her work for years.)
If writing about gender and women's experience makes me chick lit I make no apology. I will make no apology for my sex or writing about anything related to it.
'This immediately puts me off, and Readman's pose'-
This was a fascinating insight MrGill. What I did was write a book. I included a photo of myself ONLY because all Salt books include them, as do most books by any press. I am interested as to why 'my pose' (personally) is at all relevant? I am actually somewhere who has very poor levels of confidence, as many women do. I wish we lived in a world where photos on books weren't required. The photo is not suggestive. I am not exposing myself or in some sort of sex position. I am buttoned to the neck in a shirt and tie. It is a modest photo taken in my house.
The photo of me on the Salt site, again, is not suggestive. It was taken half an hour before I got married.
You even mentioning it exposes a huge double standard. If I was not a woman, if I was a writer from an ethnic minority say- would you consider it acceptable to comment on what I look like? If I was even an elderly gentleman? No. You would not. It would not be relevant, but somehow because I am a woman it is to you. If you don't believe that I have a right to notice this, here are the facts:
I have had three writer pics in my career. Each time a male reviewer has seen it as fair game within a review to comment on what I looked like.
1) Photo one- in which I wore a polo neck sweater and didn't smile because, understandably I was nervous, 'Readman looks like a moody teenager determined to find everything boring.'
2) I changed my photo, to one where I was still wearing my hat from coming in one December in a fur coat 'The author photo put me off...I don't like 'wacky'
3) Your good self.
As for being 'to slangy/conversational' I make no appology. This is how some people speak in the 21st century. The characters in my book do not have a vocabulary much greater than that. They feel things they may not have the words to express, this doesn't stop there being anything of worth in the poems.
'every inch he has handled will have shed itself,
fallen silent
into secret snow flakes that land
on your tongue'
Conversational? This may well be how people you know speak. Not here however.
I am not bigging myself or putting anyone down here. I am simply defending my book on these points I can see severe flaws in. If you'd just left it as saying the book wasn't your cup of tea, that's fair. But using terms like 'sexing up' and' titillation', commenting on my 'pose', really says alot more about you than me.
Here it is in all its nasty glory:
'And I'm sorry, but from the sample you have on the site of Angela Readman's work, I am not at all impressed: it seems gimmicky, titillating, and far too conversational/slangy for my tastes. I just don't get the post modern mantra that everything, including poetry, the most soulful of artforms, should be sexed up. It immediately puts me off and Readman's pose, her book title, and many poem titles and themes do absolutely nothing for me at all so I'd be unlikely to look any further. This is not what I would look for in poetry I'm afraid - there's enough of this kind of thing in more popular mediums these days. It just reminds me of the chick-lit poetry of Clare Pollard. Sorry. Life's too short.' ASGill
I won't pretend this hasn't destroyed me Mr 'Gill'. I'll be honest, your remarks are literary wounds from which I don't know if I will recover. I want to address some of your remarks in particular, particularly this my work being 'titillating' and invoking some 'post modern mantra that poetry, the most soulful of artforms (forgive me, this is where I spit tea from my mouth with no sexual innuendo whatsoever, purely from rising laughter) should be sexed up.' I will let you off with gimmicky MrGill, as I can see how someone who doesn't see what I am doing may well pounce on the theme of the book and find this superficial reason to damn it.
Here are my points regarding these issues:
1) Nowhere on my book do I attempt to disguise what the book is about. The blurb states this a book that includes the sex industry (I'd say it is then a safe assumption that there may be some sex in it.) Frankly, why you bothered reading it when this is clear, given your own very specific views on poetry, I have no idea.
2) Ok, then, so the setting of the book involves sex. However, I am confused as to how in any way my work is 'titillating' and 'sexing things up.' Readers who have read the book carefully have disagreed and have looked beyond the setting to see the content. Yes, shocking that there may be, one or two (and one or two poems only) contain actual sex. Titillating? A poem that deals with a naive narrators of an experience that is questionably date rape? Really? A poem that deals with a step father making sexual innuendo to a teenage girl? A poem that sees said girl walking along and even a taxi driver making overtly sexist comments? I'm glad you think this is sexy and titillating. The fact that some people are unable to see beyond the external circumstance/ appearance of women, to the wider issues of their life stories, moments in their lives and media influences reminds me why I needed to write this book.
3) Trust me, if I wanted to be titillating I really could. There are dozens of opportunites to, particularly within the subject matter (douche products, implants, lube. cfome shots, the whole kabang.) I did not include such things because, circumstance or not, the book is about humanising that we have sexualised, telling stories about people.) Finding humanity. I'll take a poem like Bodil and the Pigs as an example, if I was going to be 'sexing things up' or 'titillating' I would write about this character as a woman making disturbing porn films. Instead, I wrote a sequence about a child and her parents, her alcoholic father, her religious upbringing. There is no sex here, only rural scenes, only a mute sort of buried sadness.
4) I see you use the term 'chick lit' poetry. a) This is a sexist term to start with b) what exactly is chick lit? Forgive my ignorance, I never read it, but isn't chic lit actually work about women, light, glamorous, comedic in tone, romantic and , sadly, all too often involving shopping? You may well have a different palate to mine and many women if a girl removing her braces with a pair of pliers, sleeping on an old couch under the freeway or being coerced into sex, leaves the sugary taste of chic lit in your mouth.
I can only assume then that by 'chick lit' poetry you are referring to 1) the gender of the writer 2) the fact she is, unappogeticaly, writing about women.
This term is loaded with a great many assumptions that include factors being taken into consideration about the age and sex of the writer. (Oh, yes, BTW thank you so much for putting my name in the same sentence as Clare Pollard, I have alot of respect for her. I've been hoping to introduce my work to some of the people who enjoy her work for years.)
If writing about gender and women's experience makes me chick lit I make no apology. I will make no apology for my sex or writing about anything related to it.
'This immediately puts me off, and Readman's pose'-
This was a fascinating insight MrGill. What I did was write a book. I included a photo of myself ONLY because all Salt books include them, as do most books by any press. I am interested as to why 'my pose' (personally) is at all relevant? I am actually somewhere who has very poor levels of confidence, as many women do. I wish we lived in a world where photos on books weren't required. The photo is not suggestive. I am not exposing myself or in some sort of sex position. I am buttoned to the neck in a shirt and tie. It is a modest photo taken in my house.
The photo of me on the Salt site, again, is not suggestive. It was taken half an hour before I got married.
You even mentioning it exposes a huge double standard. If I was not a woman, if I was a writer from an ethnic minority say- would you consider it acceptable to comment on what I look like? If I was even an elderly gentleman? No. You would not. It would not be relevant, but somehow because I am a woman it is to you. If you don't believe that I have a right to notice this, here are the facts:
I have had three writer pics in my career. Each time a male reviewer has seen it as fair game within a review to comment on what I looked like.
1) Photo one- in which I wore a polo neck sweater and didn't smile because, understandably I was nervous, 'Readman looks like a moody teenager determined to find everything boring.'
2) I changed my photo, to one where I was still wearing my hat from coming in one December in a fur coat 'The author photo put me off...I don't like 'wacky'
3) Your good self.
As for being 'to slangy/conversational' I make no appology. This is how some people speak in the 21st century. The characters in my book do not have a vocabulary much greater than that. They feel things they may not have the words to express, this doesn't stop there being anything of worth in the poems.
'every inch he has handled will have shed itself,
fallen silent
into secret snow flakes that land
on your tongue'
Conversational? This may well be how people you know speak. Not here however.
I am not bigging myself or putting anyone down here. I am simply defending my book on these points I can see severe flaws in. If you'd just left it as saying the book wasn't your cup of tea, that's fair. But using terms like 'sexing up' and' titillation', commenting on my 'pose', really says alot more about you than me.
'Annonymous' critics
Yesterday I happened to see an extremely damning comment about my book Strip on The Guardian blog page.
The discussion was actually about Salt Publishing's 10th Birthday. I was not a participant in the discussion. The guy commenting had many things to say about Salt, poetry today, etc, etc. Many things he wanted to say without extending the courtesy of using his actual name. This is a bit of a literary hit and run. Although I was not there, a drive by somehow mortally wounded me anyway. I have nothing but respect for anyone who has opinions about literature, even when I don't agree with them, but I have more respect for people who are willing so stand up and put their name to them. (I may say things many people don't agree with, but I say them honestly and transparently.) The criticism I had is one thing, I'll deal with this shortly, but the manner in which it was delivered is the equivalent of a phone call in the middle of the night. You hear the heavy breathing, you feel your breath catch in your chest and your hands shaking, but no, you have no idea who this is. 'Asgill' on The Guardian blog also was not too enthusiastic about Luke Kennard and Salt generally, but I felt he had a go at me in particular, for no reason I can see.
From the comments posted it is clear that a man made these comments: a poet, someone political, an educated person who does work with groups 'on the outskirts'. It was not difficult to figure out this person is probably with Smokestack books (come come Mr AsGill (Arthur Scargill?) the order in which we would mention publishers we like gives away more than we may intend. Much as if I listed poetry publishers I liked I would probably always list Salt first. What we know will always slip out first.
So ASGill, who I believe to be Alan Morrison from Hove, (yes, clever as your ruse is it doesn't work too well if on a post in 2009 we signed it A.Morrison, Hove) let's not be coy. If we want to give our opinions to the big boys, poets, publishers, writers and editors like Roddy Lumsden we must be willing to use our name. As you say 'Life is too short.'
If by any chance Alan Morrison, poet from Brighton is not 'ASGill' then of course these comments don't apply to you. If you are Alan Morrison and did not comment on The Guardian blog I strongly suggest you contact The Guardian site and make a complaint about this guy using your name.
The discussion was actually about Salt Publishing's 10th Birthday. I was not a participant in the discussion. The guy commenting had many things to say about Salt, poetry today, etc, etc. Many things he wanted to say without extending the courtesy of using his actual name. This is a bit of a literary hit and run. Although I was not there, a drive by somehow mortally wounded me anyway. I have nothing but respect for anyone who has opinions about literature, even when I don't agree with them, but I have more respect for people who are willing so stand up and put their name to them. (I may say things many people don't agree with, but I say them honestly and transparently.) The criticism I had is one thing, I'll deal with this shortly, but the manner in which it was delivered is the equivalent of a phone call in the middle of the night. You hear the heavy breathing, you feel your breath catch in your chest and your hands shaking, but no, you have no idea who this is. 'Asgill' on The Guardian blog also was not too enthusiastic about Luke Kennard and Salt generally, but I felt he had a go at me in particular, for no reason I can see.
From the comments posted it is clear that a man made these comments: a poet, someone political, an educated person who does work with groups 'on the outskirts'. It was not difficult to figure out this person is probably with Smokestack books (come come Mr AsGill (Arthur Scargill?) the order in which we would mention publishers we like gives away more than we may intend. Much as if I listed poetry publishers I liked I would probably always list Salt first. What we know will always slip out first.
So ASGill, who I believe to be Alan Morrison from Hove, (yes, clever as your ruse is it doesn't work too well if on a post in 2009 we signed it A.Morrison, Hove) let's not be coy. If we want to give our opinions to the big boys, poets, publishers, writers and editors like Roddy Lumsden we must be willing to use our name. As you say 'Life is too short.'
If by any chance Alan Morrison, poet from Brighton is not 'ASGill' then of course these comments don't apply to you. If you are Alan Morrison and did not comment on The Guardian blog I strongly suggest you contact The Guardian site and make a complaint about this guy using your name.
Introduction
My name is Angela Readman. I am a writer. It isn't a choice for me. I've been writing, and knew I just had to, since I was a child. Those dreams of just writing and people reading it seem very far away. The idea was much easier than the world of publishing, trying to get work out there, keeping on going. I find myself in the position of starting over, wanting to write, get my work out there and starting from the ground up. In the past I've written poetry, to do so I shelved my dream about writing short stories for a while. Now, I'm back to square one. Learning. Writing. I have no idea how to go about finding any sort of home for my work.
This blog is just that, about starting over again. I don't know what's out there.
I hope there are writers out there who can relate.
Angela
This blog is just that, about starting over again. I don't know what's out there.
I hope there are writers out there who can relate.
Angela
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