Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

From: Colleen Lookingbill
Subject: Re: Gender and theory
Having just subscribed 2 weeks ago I am new to this kind of list email thing.
Wanted to put my woman’s voice into the mix. We are all survivors of
patriarchy, that fact is genderless. How you choose to respond to that fact is up
to your response - ability. The kind of continuous one-upsmanship, king of the
heap games that are seem apparent on this list are characteristic of a patriarchal
system in my opinion.
About what Alan Golding wrote:
"On the recent theory exchanges: interesting that the theory discussion and the
boy/girl talk have been going on simultaneously but in parallel lines, without
much crossover. What’s the relation between theory (the tendency to theorize,
the kind of theorizing that gets done) and gender?"
I found the gender discussion to be the more interesting of the two threads. To
me the theory discussion seems kind of weird - do I really read that some
people are saying that to be a good poet you have to be a theorist as well?
Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Unless the idea is that by writing and
thinking about what you write and how effectively your creativity is working
you are doing theory. Theory that interests me the most is more experiential -
based on this is what has happened to me or what I have observed in the stream
of life and this is what I think about that, less academic in nature than what is
being posted, I’d say. I’m willing to read the more technical and academic
stuff, but probably less likely to participate in those discussions. Don’t know if
this is gender based, but it might be, does seem to fit in a little with what other
women are saying about responding more to the personal.