"Until the Women's Movement, it was commonplace to be told by an editor that he'd like to publish more of my poems, but he'd already published one by a woman that month ... this attitude was the rule rather than the exception, until the mid-sixties. Highest compliment was to be told, "You write like a man.""
Maxine Kumin (b. 1925), U.S. poet. As quoted in A Gift That Cannot be Refused, ch. 2, by Mary Biggs (1990).
Written in 1983 on a survey questionnaire. |
"Women are not supposed to have uteruses, especially in poems."
Maxine Kumin (b. 1925), U.S. poet and feminist. As quoted in Women's Studies, p. 135 (1976).
On the restrictions on poetry's subject matter due to male editors' dismissal of peculiarly "female" topics. |
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