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.