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