Why I Don't Want Your Dick There In That Poem

in

By Laura Warman

  1. I am the poetry editor for Queen Mob’s Teahouse
  2. I am also a reader for jubilat
  3. I am also the editor of my own press, GLASS PRESS
  4. I read submissions a lot
  5. Probably every day
  6. Often I come across images of dicks
  7. These dicks aren’t necessarily connected to a body
  8. These dicks throw themselves on the page
  9. They have no fears, they are not vulnerable
  10. These are very specific dicks
  11. Let’s call them cis-male, white, straight, upper/middle class dicks
  12. Of course that isn’t all
  13. Of course I can’t categorize these dicks in this way
  14. Recently I rejected a poem on the sole basis of what I viewed as a problematic positioning of The Dick in the poem
  15. The Author of the Dick Poem replied saying I was “asinine” and “foolish” for rejecting a poem based on this
  16. Of course I am both of those things!
  17. The Girl
  18. My rejection of the poem was seen by him to trivialize my position as an Editor
  19. As-If editorial choices are made without bias!
  20. Editors are generally white cis-males
  21. These editors are generally treated as if they are without bias and publishing the Best work that gets submitted to them
  22. Because I have never been able to see or write past my body I am the one with the bias
  23. But, we are all working within the hegemonic patriarchy of capitalism
  24. I show you my bias freely
  25. I, the woman, (the Dickless), am at the other end of binary desire in the rape culture
  26. Yes, Literature is reflective of this rape subculture
  27. Yes, I am opposed to poems that support the binary of power, aggression, desire
  28. The dick in the poem is always doing something
  29. The dick in the poem is not static

Originally published at Queen Mob's Teahouse