The new Poetry Review contains reviews of, by my count, 41 books. 20 are by men and 21 are by women. All 20 of the books by men are reviewed by men, and all 21 of the books by women are reviewed by women.

Is this significant?

Is there a larger debate to be had about gender and reviewing?

Someone tell me if I've got my sums wrong, by the way.

OMG. Can you believe that.

Good topic. Well, I review almost as many men as women. I reviewed two women in the new Poetry London, but I chose them myself (from an available pool), as their work interested me, and I've just corrected the final proofs of my longish piece on Ted Hughes' letters for the Dark Horse.

I will say a couple of things. One is that editors have explicitly told me they need more good critical prose from women. Is it that women aren't reviewing? Or are they not reviewing in the same way as men, somehow? Are men writing better critical prose than women?? That doesn't seem right.

I had dinner with another editor recently who said he'd been accused of rampant sexism, because of a review - by a woman - of another woman poet, which mentioned her dresses or said her language was feminine, or something. Needless to say he is not sexist, he sought me out to write for him and I have written for him on Hecht, Brodsky and MacNeice. So I wonder if women sort of ghettoise themselves - and if they do, why do they? (Not all women, of course. I don't.)

My second thing is that as many male poets as female have said to me, of reviewing and esay-writing, words to the effect of "I could never do that! I wouldn't know how."

Which, as usual with my comments on here, brings us precisely back to square one.

David, do you have a gut feeling about this?

Dang, I haven't had my copy of the new PR yet. I hope it's gone to the right address. :o

I suggested a review of a book by a male poet/translator, had that idea turned down, and was offered three books by female poets instead.

I'd guess that roughly 85% of books chosen for me to review by editors, both male and female, have been by women.

Conspiracy? Coincidence?

I remember very well from editing Metre how many of the critics putting themselves forward to write for us would be male, and how consciously we had to seek out women reviewers. If we fell into the trap of giving the latter women poets to review (and I can't remember if we did), then bad me, bad bad me. I think it's a habit all too easily internalised without the editor even noticing what's going on.

Whereas a man reviewing a man is just the default 'neutral' position and one whose gender politics of course require no comment!

The stats for the latest PR can't be coincidental, can they? Either Fiona is doing it deliberately, perhaps for this issue only, or there is a problem with the way she is assigning reviewing. It needn't be 50-50, but a bit more balanced.

Re what David says about unintentional internalising, though, I do find myself responding to requests for suggested reading with same gender poets. I've been trying to get out of that habit.

Well just on a very general level, I'd say it proves we all need to watch it. We may feel we have a level playing field, that gender politics is a thing of the past in the arts (and anywhere else) and that we don't need to raise the subject any more.

If only.

Quick point of note...

As a live events promoter, I struggle to find enough female poets I can promote.
As a small publisher, I struggle to find enough male poets I can publish.

This note is related mainly to younger performers, ie. under 35ish.

I don't want to make some rash assumptions about what you're getting at so I have to ask...why's that Tom? (Apologies if this is going off-topic...)

I'm not getting at anything other than my own observations, really! It may be going off-topic, however, as this divide might have more to do with genre differences (page/stage).

Home - my copy is here - I'll look at it. This gender thing seems NEVER to go away! Ive been mulling it over recently in light of the whole Orange Prize debate (which also never seems to go away) - and in light of the weird fact that, although as many women as men seem to serve as Booker judges, the Booker itself overwhelmingly goes to men.

So, if women are awarding the Booker - a "serious" prize - to men, does it mean we just think men are more serious? Is it a gravitas thing? There are plenty of women with gravitas, but mainly not younger ones. I was painfully conscious of its lack in my twenties. Is the lack of perceived gravitas - or inner gravitas, the RIGHT to gravitas - is that keeping women back from writing critical prose?

Of course, this is the sort of thing that leads "serious" poets like Elizabeth Bishop to refuse ever to allow her work to appear in a women's poetry anthology. It's all so limiting. I know I'd feel a bit weird if I got the Orange prize. I'd think it meant I wasn't good enough for the Booker. (And I know that's WRONG.)

By the way, when I was researching other reviews of Hughes' letters, I did find at least two by women.

Might your own ingrained prejudices play a part? In the sense that we all have them, I mean - not suggesting you are a particularly tainted individual. But it strikes me that as a man you may almost automatically find women's writing a tad more exotic (to use a crude comparison, in a similar way to how Western film critics are sometimes ill-placed to judge Japanese animation and become enchanted with something that, in the context of Japanese cultural history, is all fairly run-of-the-mill).

The stage, meanwhile, is a more 'live' social environment, where man-to-man camaraderie leeks in. We may 'get' each other more than we get the girls.

Perhaps, but of course as they are ingrained/subconscious I can't possibly begin to defend myself on the matter! Certainly, I don't (at least I hope I don't) consider poetry by women to be more 'exotic'.

What I would say is that I actively seek to support a diverse approach to literature, whether that diversity is expressed in ethnicity, gender, genre, style or age. I don't always get it right, of course, which is why I said 'seek'.

:)

I think you're right, however, (and this is oft-noted) that the world of performance poetry / spoken word is quite male-dominated for all sorts of reasons... more akin, in fact, to music or stand-up comedy. The pool I'm able to choose from is balanced in favour of male performers, so it's not surprising I promote more guys. But I do think it's the responsibility of professional promoters to also seek out talent actively, rather than just working with the people who shout the loudest, as it were.

Sorry, that's a rambling answer.

PS: Jon, I notice you live in Whitechapel. Right on! I'm down the road in Aldgate...

Cool! Come round for a cup of tea.

Think you're entirely right. I only have the usual anecdotal evidence, but I went to Uni with [name-dropping] and it's a little depressing how, out of the varied batch of writers I knew, it was only the men who went on to become moderately successful performers, some of them seemingly giving up page-writing completely for the lure of an appreciative crowd. It looks like such an easy transition for people with a certain make-up of ego.