Well the shift has started. I'm moving in with one of my good friends from where I used to work. After Lucy Blue gets her stitches out not to mention the cone. He has 2 cats ya got to know there will be some cat snits goin' down in the beginning. They are both boys so it should work it self out toots sweet. They don't get much more cute then little ole' Lucy Blue. At least thats what I'm hoping. I am gonna have to leave Pete but he's happy here. As soon as I can though, I WILL find a place for my whole furry family. Funny how he knows somethings up. Hangen' close. It's so sad but I just can't stay here any longer. Done is done. Packing is really overwhelming me. Maybe I should have a bond fire.

here's a funny little fellow I happened on during a back country walk

Packen up my cares and woes

Bye Bye blackbird. as much as I hate packing and with such few viable resources ya'd think I'd be blue. Nope, some one else will have to sing that song.

let Neco say it

My little cone head

some big narly tom cat bit her on the butt. I got him good with the garden hose with the high powered swirty nossle. But not before he inflicted the bite from hell. Poor little Lucy Blue.

book making

This is my book making class. the last book cue was what plans did we have for the summer. So my plan was well why not go big time, I would save the world. I incorporated oil price rhetoric, eating food grown close to home, global warming, a little laminated pull out superman. Every one looked a bit spooked. So this book, well the cue was "HOT". I decided to be a little less nebulous and stay on the straight and narrow of hot, hence chilies.

in love with love

she wore diamond crusted stilettos

as she walked on the edge

of her mercurial nature

rings in her navel

to keep from busting apart

with a raven on her shoulder

to preen her golden hair

the tarot cards told of the future

and the future was amazing as

she took the king of twilight for a lover

in the light of waxing gibbous moon

between her breasts her heart was leaping

he reached out to reign it in.

the angels sang a glorious song

and the harpies dropped to their knees

what a fine young dream

for the woman as old as romance

I may half to rob a bank or something

Wasn't me that barfed on the floor. Go yell at your dog.

rogue hollyhock

walk in the woods

nite of the hippie moon

mmmmm what a delightful night.

My mind is like a siv

You know, one of those things we all drain our spaghetti with. Just thought I'd throw that in. Can't remember what I was going to write tonight.

I'm house sitting so I can't upload my pictures to the house's computer. Now that mine is tried down to a 40 lb. CRT monitor, mobility isn't an option.

I did find a shop to put all my chakra balancing necklaces in. It's a book store so I can see how that might be an up hill battle to take any $ home. I'm also taking a bookmaking class. Like, not those kind of books. Bound books. Cool, I say. another crafty fun thing to do. But wheres the money in it I ask. Ideas abound. But marketing might be a bit more tricky.

I have to say that I am certainly feeling better now being 2 and 1/2 months off of interferon. The BF has only thrown me out once this month. I mean last month. I guess if I stretch my imagination a bit (not to hard for me)I could call that a plus in my life. Maybe a mini plus. but I'll take 'em any way I can get 'em.

Pussy poem

Cats whiskers must have been ringing

the feline flash flew off the kitchen table

out the flap, flap, flap, cat door

dove patrol no doubt, her duty to catdom

sleuthing out those feather dusters.

Her head cocked left

blue shards watching

only the metronome in her tail

alive

before the moment of decisive action

erupting in a Vesuvius of downy delight.

No where to go but up

A friend gave me an old (not to old) CRT monitor. works great. I can lift it, that was the main criteria. Need a different cable to hook up my HDTV to the affair. And I need to pluck it off the wall where it hangs about six inches from the ceiling.

And wouldn't ya know, now the laptop monitor is working again. If you squeeze it about two inches in from the left and two inches up from the bottom it works but, can you imagine how much fun it is to type with one hand on the keyboard and the other FIRMLY attached to the screen. HMM I think it needs a bit of glue inside. or alot of glue. I'll call Dell with all my wisdom and see what they will charge me.

I can hear them laughing now, in England English with Indian from India overtones. And me with brain fog, unable to spit out three quarters of the words needed to explain the almost indescribable situation.

But I still like the big screen idea the best. Not very portable. glad it didn't sell in the liquidation of my shit that has been occurring lately.

My latest necklace. Silver buffalo and beads, denim lapis beads, and glass beads. sweet.

Whine

I just got back from the Valley of the Sun and will I was there, my cumputer screens bottom 1/3 decided it was no longer apart of the screen team. It secesseded Friday night in my motel room just as I was trying to hook into the high speed. OOOOOOOOO I'm home now on the BF's sons 12" laptop. It's really sweet. Guess I can hook mine up to my 38 inch HDTV up on the wall. Not very portable but at least I can look at my shit in the my documents file.

I'm bummed to say the least. my live really is hooked into my cumputer. All my photoshop stuff and the pictures. Just got a free trial to corel painter. Thats so FUN. Might alll look good on the 38 inch screen. When I get the energy to hook it up. Hope I still have a cable. Had a little house cleaning day last week and thru alot of stuff away. Less to pack when I figure out how to move.

It rained the whole time I was in Phoenix. Thought I might have took a wrong turn and had ended up in Oregon. I trying writing (to entertain myself) but I can't think so well without a keyboard at my fingertips. my hand writing sucks. I can't spell either. So annoying.

But I have lot's of beads. Need to get ready for the farmers market in July. Have one commissioned to do in the next week. And I was going to put them on the web again. We'll see.

Never a spare moment in the daily battle of Armageddon

Barbie

I saw the sign

Yard sale, all must go

Including me it turned out

being uncommitted to time

and in the spending way

And then I saw

my heart skipped a beat

in a box of other forgotten pastiche

cheap at 50 cents

poor tossed to the curb "Barbie"

in a hell of a fix

She looked like the end of the bender

in her torn see-though lingerie

hair a disheveled disaster

So how, dear friends,

could I pass up Barbie in that box

of nuts and bolts

after all she had done for me

in the angst of childhood

crooning over my flat chest

she told me someday, these would be yours

Barbie Boobs, thank god thought I.

So I gave the guy two quarters

and quickly left the scene for home

gave her a spa day in the sink

mended her tattered undees

and stitched her a chenille bathrobe

She can be house mouse Barbie for awhile

In the potted plant

Cinderella among roses

Move over Betsy Wetsy,

there’s a new doll in town

Are you #12

Just a few facts link.

Just like science fiction

It's just like ground hog day

I'm taking one class and it's kick'n my ass.

early Gary Snyder

The Rabbit
A grizzled black-eyed rabbit showed me

irrigation ditches, open paved highway,
white line
to the hill.
bell chill blue jewel sky
banners
Banner clouds flying,
The mountains all gathered,
juniper trees on the flanks
cone buds,
the snug bark scale
in thin powder snow
over rock scrabble, pricklers, boulders,
pines and junipers,
singing.
The trees all singing.

The mountains are singing
To gather the sky and the mist
to bring it down snow-breath
ice-banners,
and gather it water
Sent from the singing peaks
flanks and folds
Down arroyos and ditches by highways the water
The people to use it, the
mountains and juniper
Do it for men,

Said the rabbit.

First published in Poetry, March 1968. © Gary Snyder

Greyhounds & the ghost

Just a little something

After the Movie by Marie Howe My friend Michael and I are walking home arguing about the movie. He says that he believes a person can love someone and still be able to murder that person. I say, No, that's not love. That's attachment. Michael says, No, that's love. You can love someone, then come to a day when you're forced to think "it's him or me" think "me" and kill him. I say, Then it's not love anymore. Michael says, It was love up to then though. I say, Maybe we mean different things by the same word. Michael says, Humans are complicated: love can exist even in the murderous heart. I say that what he might mean by love is desire. Love is not a feeling, I say. And Michael says, Then what is it? We're walking along West 16th Street—a clear unclouded night—and I hear my voice repeating what I used to say to my husband: Love is action, I used to say to him. Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at someone you want to eat and not eat them. Janis Joplin says, take another little piece of my heart now baby. Meister Eckhardt says that as long as we love images we are doomed to live in purgatory. Michael and I stand on the corner of 6th Avenue saying goodnight. I can't drink enough of the tangerine spritzer I've just bought— again and again I bring the cold can to my mouth and suck the stuff from the hole the flip top made. What are you doing tomorrow? Michael says. But what I think he's saying is "You are too strict. You are a nun." Then I think, Do I love Michael enough to allow him to think these things of me even if he's not thinking them? Above Manhattan, the moon wanes, and the sky turns clearer and colder. Although the days, after the solstice, have started to lengthen, we both know the winter has only begun.

I think he's worried about things. Pete's a funny guy.

Darn

Hey Mom, Mom, are ya there? I just wanted to know the recipe for that casserole we used to have on Thursday night. I think it was Thursday. You know, the one with the hamburger and creamed corn? I can't remember what else was in it. My memory is sort of fuzzy these day's. Must have been all those drugs you warned me about. Ya, I know, I cooked that casserole maybe a hundred times but I just can't remember. Drat's. I think this current boyfriend might like it. He's kind of a pain in the ass to cook for. From the midwest originally. Likes all that bland greasy MEAT stuff. You know how I am about meat. You were right Mom. those drugs did come back to bite me on the ass. Sorry, I know much you hate my bad mouth. It just feels good sometimes. Like picking your nose. My nose I mean. You know what I mean. Mom, did you know I'm dyslexic? I remember in the fifth grade the kids laughed cause I always misspelled words. Back ass words. Opp's sorry. Hey are you watching the campaign? I think you'd like Hilary. I know, I know, if I just would have kept my nose to the grind stone. Obama is pretty cool too. Lot's of charisma. Smart. he listened to his Mom. Kept his nose to the grindstone and all. He's a bit younger than Hilary. It's tough on her I htink, competing in a mans world. But you know that. Geez, president Mom. Who would have believed it. But you always said. Well I guess I better get up and clean this place. Really dusty today. The dogs really drag it in. As much as I hate cleaning, Dusting all those antiques of yours every Saturday as a kid left a sour taste for dusting. But I really do a good job. You taught me well. Well, I suppose that your not gonna answer. Darn it. I really miss you. We never got to talk to much anyway. But I'll try back later. Promise. You take care now.

oh yeah

Lucky Stars

Yesterday the Dr. took me of that crap medication. I should feel better in a couple of weeks. At least that has been my recent experience from the last time I went off tx. First time my insurance messed up my meds so I had to go without for two weeks. Last time I went off tx my white count was dangerously low so Dr took me off. Each time it gets harder to pick it up again. And again, the insurance messed up my prescription and even if I wanted to stay on treatment, I have none to stay on. Geez, I wonder if they will screw up my liver when it comes? I got a bill from the emergency room Dr for an infection I got last month. My Dr said to go to the emergency room. But, again, the insurance denied it. Oh well, why would I expect any better. Even the high dollar insurance I used to have really wasn't much better. And I don't suppose it will get much better in the near future. i want to hope the answers will come for people that are in situations like mine. I would like think the answers will come for everything that ails the world. But instead I think I will just be happy to feel better for awhile and not have to worry about a tiny infection killing me. At this moment I would be in the bathroom fiddling with that big chunk of plastic that my shot comes encased in. (4 out of 24 of them broke.) But I'm not. Instead, I am counting my lucky stars I don't have to do that shot any more.

Other news today:
go visit Ashabot

class work or this one's for Roy.

Lucy makes contact

chilling :+{}

E-mail

I’m glad to see you posted the dueling essay on women in the small press, but I was not able to find the entire piece, so I thought I would send the article to you in it totality.

All The Best,

Charles P. Ries

WHY I GAVE UP WRITING

AND JOINED THE CIRCUS

I left it all; the paper and pens, publishers

and agents who could not love my inner

fantasy and joined the circus.

The make-up, big nose and fancy pants

helped me overcome my feelings of

obscurity. I created an identity grander

than my literary art. I now have something

worth writing about.

I married the fat lady, she gave birth to

a midget; I learned to swallow swords,

made friends with a contortionist who

told me to turn my pens into pretzels,

and live like a real man.

Find Web Home of Charles P. Ries at: http://www.literati.net/Ries

Charles P. Ries

Here's the entire article.

ARE WOMEN UNDERREPRESENTED IN THE SMALL PRESS

A DUELING ESSAY

By: CHARLES P. RIES and ELLARAINE LOCKIE

I became curious about women in the poetry small press when I noticed there were almost no female poets among the Beats of the 50’s and 60’s. I then found equally few female poets in a review I’d written poetry anthology which focused on poets in the 70’s. So I wondered, “How far have we really come?” When an e-mail query I sent to sixty poets, publishes and editors got me almost forty pages of replies, I thought I was on to something, but wanted see what a first rate female poet made of it all. Ellaraine Lockie was nice enough to jump into the gender equity hot tub with me and we agreed to disagree. Here is what we had to say about the current status of female poets in the small press. ~ Charles P. Ries

Are Women Underrepresented in the Small Press?

By: Charles P. Ries

Word Count: 1, 372

I had recently completed reading a poetry anthology entitled, Baby Beat Generation & The 2nd San Francisco Renaissance when I noticed how few women contributors were represented. I didn’t understand why this would be the case, so I asked Kaye MacDonough whose work was featured about the status of women in the poetry small press, North Beach and the 70’s:

“I think the North Beach lifestyle itself was hard on women. You had to be able to live poor and like it -- handle yourself in a bar, walk alone on the street at any hour, and rely on no one. You had to take care that you weren't an alcohol or drug casualty -- and that you could keep up with all those poets and what they read, and they read plenty. You had to be able to read your poetry to rooms full of mostly men who were not shy about giving you feedback. The womanizing was a definite minus. Where I came from, women did not go about unescorted at night, let alone into a bar, so North Beach wasn’t exactly a place to settle down and start a family-- I'm not sure I knew what in the heck I was after – alcohol certainly played a role. I think I wanted to live like a man – a man who was a poet.”

Maybe MacDonough’s experience was just North Beach and the 70’s, but when I looked at the popular Beat poets of the 50’s and 60’s almost none are women. I wondered if things had changed? I believe some sectors of our poetry world are still dominated by a male ethos. Yet I also believe women, write, read, and buy more poetry. I see a growing number of female editors; particularly in the booming electronic magazines sector, but it seems to me that men are more aggressive about submitting work and getting work published than women. I also believe that women are better represented in the academic MFA side of poetry, but still, I had this feeling there are fewer female voices in the poetry small press than male voices. So I invited poets, publishers and editors to send me their thoughts about what I felt was a race, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic free zone called the poetry small press. As you might imagine, the replies were varied. Some agreed, and some didn’t agree with my assumption. Here are a few observations that I pulled from over forty pages of responses:

Our first few issues featured more female than male poets. The reason for this is that we solicited female poets heavily. In recent issues, we haven't solicited as much and the result is that we've gotten more male poets over the transom. What does this mean? Women aren't sending us poetry unless we ask for it. So why don't women send us poetry? If I use the model of myself (a male) and my fiancée (a female) then I notice that I will send work any and everywhere, and she is much more selective. I also tend to write more than she does, though her work is often stronger and more polished. Many women writers I know are very selective about where they send their work. The idea of social roles has been brought up; that women are still often relegated to the home and many women have children and so can't send work out/must be more selective. But the thing I find much more disturbing is the lack of minority submissions. CL Bledsoe ~ Ghoti Magazine

We all have trouble getting published regularly (who doesn't I guess), but most do get published from time to time if they send their poems out! And there I think is the issue. Many of the women I know who write poetry either don't send their poems out, or don't send them out as regularly (let alone relentlessly) as most of the male poets I know. Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D ~ Poet

So many women got their foot in the door with the vigorous feminist press movement of the late 70s/early 80s. Some of those journals are still in existence. On the other hand, the beat poet movement was largely male. What tradition is more influential to today's independent literary journals? The question is complex/nuanced and far reaching into the history of women in literature and society. Liz Bradfield ~ Broadsided

Several years ago, as part of my master’s thesis, I interviewed four women poets: Stellasue Lee, Denise Duhamel, Naomi Shihab Nye and Shara McCallum. Stellasue Lee spoke about this very issue. This interview was published in Margie, The American Review of Poetry, issue two and can be found online at http://www.margiereview.com%22 %5Co %22http://www.margiereview.comunder the link: Chautauquas. Lee told me that as poetry editor of RATTLE, she would publish more women writers, but fewer women writers submitted. When I asked Lee recently if this were still true, she said that the overwhelming number of submissions to Rattle came from male writers. I do think that some women are happy to just write and not play the whole publishing game. I've never encountered malicious bias. If it's out there, I may be naive to it. Karla Huston ~ Poet

I don't believe that women are better poets, but I do believe that women poets need to get off their collective asses and start submitting work in greater numbers. The ratio of women to men submitting work to poetic diversity is 1 to 3. I also don't believe that women improve their craft with age just because they are women. What I do believe is something my mother Michelle Lecrivain (a painter and quilt artist) once told me: "Women have been creating art in their everyday life since the beginning of time. It's as natural to our sex as breathing, but we're not taught to look at our creation as art. We're only taught to look at our creations as 'labours'." Marie Lecrivain ~ Poeticdiversity

Maybe it doesn’t matter that women are less represented in poetry small press if they don’t want to be. After all, the genders are different; and getting published may not matter as much to women as it does to men. But the number and variety of replies to my query – forty of the sixty poets, editors and publishers I contacted responded - suggests equal opportunity is on people’s minds.

In the mid-70’s an act of congress called Title Nine required schools to invest as much in girls athletics as they did boys athletics. Not surprisingly the numbers of girls participating in athletics has grown to numbers never imagined in the 70’s. Equally interesting to me is that enrollment of women in universities is rising steadily and has now outpaced men. Maybe when we give a generation of women the same access and the same belief in themselves as we have traditionally given our men, they will not hesitate to compete, even in the poetry small press – if they choose to.

I am not sure we have arrived at a time when we can just write well and forget about gender (or race for that matter), when it comes to equal representation. The Beats hardly had women in their ranks. The poets of the 70’s didn’t do much better. Today we can look around and say we’ve made progress, there are more female poets getting published, but have we arrived? I don’t think so. I don’t believe that in 2006 the doors to well written poetry are as open to female poets as they are to their male counterparts.

So what do we do about it? To those of you who think we have arrived and good writing has prevailed over sexism – nothing. To those of us who feel there is still a ways to go, doors to open, and opportunities to give; we must take an active role to make sure the poetry of talented men and women is brought before the widest audience possible. Talent alone is not enough to create equal opportunity. We must all participate in leveling the playing field.

NOTE: I would be happy to send the over forty pages of responses to my query about women in the small press as an e-mail attachment to anyone requesting it.

_______________________________

Are Women Underrepresented in the Small Press?

By: Ellaraine Lockie

Word count: About 1620

When Charles Ries queried why there are so few women represented in the small press, I didn't have a clue what he meant because that has been neither my personal experience nor my observation. But then, I don't generally think in terms of gender, and maybe I just hadn't noticed. The sociologist in me was curious, so I did a statistical analysis of the last issues of publications that ran my work. Here are the results. (Contact me at elockie@comcast.net for a list of the publications, if interested):

In 20 hard-copy publications, 374 women were represented and 334 men. There were 13 men editors and 7 women editors.

In 15 online publications, 113 women were represented and 109 men. There were 13 men editors and 10 women editors.

Of course, this is by no means a definitive study, as it reflects empirically only one poet's work and style of submitting. Yet the publications are very diverse, and plenty of responses to Charles' query support my findings. Liz Bradfield from Broadsided says she has received a fairly even distribution of submissions from men and women. Since her retirement, Rhina Espaillat reports a "nice even balance between men and women" among writers she encounters.

Lee Vowell, Editor of Underground Window, says it never seemed to him there was a large minority of females in poetrydom. He's published over 150 poets, and roughly 45% of them are female. To counterbalance that, John Amen, at Pedestal Magazine, gets probably 60% submissions from females.

Ken Gurney, Editor for Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry, reports that submissions there split about 50/50 between men and women and that his acceptance rate is about the same. At March Street Press, Editor Robert Bixby says that he, too, gets a nice mixture of men and women. Jennifer VanBuren, Editor of Mannequin Envy, says they get more submissions from men but publish about 50/50.

When Pris Campbell counted the poets in Mipo's last issue, she found more than half of them to be female. During the nine years as Poetry Editor for Poetic Voices, Ursula Gibson found no lack of submissions from either males or females. Ray Foreman, Publisher of Clark Street Review, has the same opinion about the small press in general. Louis McKee at One Trick Pony, indicates that 60% of his blind submissions are from men, but yet he tries to publish balanced issues.

Charles Coe says, "Maybe certain publications--either because of editorial focus or name or whatever--just aren't appealing to women contributors. But I just don't see that as an industry-wide issue. Charles take the issue one step further and informs us that, "The Council of Literary Presses and Magazines is a service organization for independent publishers funded in part by the New York Council for Arts. If you go to their home page (http:www.clmp.org), click on the "Member Directory" and poke around at random, you'll see women editors and contributors all over the place."

A few editors indicate they do go out of their way to publish women's work, giving their gender more exposure in the small press. Editors CL Bledsoe, Jillian Meyer and Donna Epler at Ghoti Magazine say they "solicit the hell out of female poets" because they have learned that if they don't, female submissions drop.

Louis McKee at One Trick Pony indicates that 60% of his blind submissions are from men, but yet he tries to publish balanced issues. Gordon Purkis, Mastodon Dentist Editor, says twice he's had to seek female submissions or the issues would have been completely male dominated.

Karla Huston submitted an excerpt from an interview in Margie, The American Review of Poetry, where she interviewed Stellasue Lee, Editor of RATTLE. In the interview, Stellasue tells of a writing workshop she conducted with a few years ago with 39 women, after which she invited them to submit to RATTLE. She even called each of them on the phone after the workshop with the invitation. Fifteen did not submit their work. Of course, who knows if men would have reacted statistically different? Also, this interview took place several years ago and may not result in the same consequences today.

Editor Jonathan Penton says if he didn't actively pursue submissions from female authors, fewer and fewer would show. He goes on to say, "To prevent UnlikelyStories.org from becoming a complete boy's club, I try to publish a certain percentage of women in every issue."

Jonathan is also one of the few responding male editors who claimed to have a preference for the "masculine aesthetic." Joseph Farley at Cynic Press, who has published two books by women and ten by men, says that maybe he too has an unconscious bias toward "male qualities" in writing. Louis McKee is another who identifies more with perceived male writers' themes and points of view, although he believes that, ". . . the good poems cannot be denied, and the good, persistent poets will find an audience."

But is this perceived gender subject preference the norm among male editors? I doubt it, based again on my personal experience and observations. Of my four published collections, two address women's menopausal years, and I found no reluctance in men editors to publish the individual poems in these collections or to write enthusiastic and positive reviews of them. Karla Huston reports that she also feels her work has never suffered gender bias.

However, I believe the style of writing between men and women might affect the quality of their poems and result in a different gender statistic. I know many excellent women poets who pull away from using words like fuck or asshole when those words are appropriate to the poems they're writing. It's as though they don't realize those words are not a personal reflection on them but rather an accurate depiction of something or someone they are depicting. Respondent Anita Wynn hit on this when she wrote, “. . . people seem to forget that a poet doesn't always use his/her own voice, and that the speaker is not necessarily representing the writer."

Even the opinion that women's subject matter drastically differs from that of men's is open for debate, until it is scientifically studied. But several poet and editor respondents feel that there exist definite gender content differences. In addition to the men mentioned above, Ken Gurney notices it. He says, "The majority of rants and experimental poetry I receive as submissions are from men. The majority of healing, life affirming poetry I receive is from women."

There are also some women who express their affirmative opinions that gender content differences exist. Ursula Gibson thinks that women's poetry deals more with their life circumstances and their relationships and men's more with protest, anger or politics.

Laura Stamps feels the reason she gets a much higher rate of acceptance from magazines that are edited by women is simply because she writes about what interests them. She says, "Men tend to write about. . . their current depression, bars, heavy drinking, their girlfriends/wives or the one that just dumped them" and that they are more likely than women to curse and less likely to write about feminine topics like nature. Laura also thinks that most of the women poets who get published a lot in the small press do so because they write "like men." However, Ania Wynn says her "masculine style" has been a constant criticism.

On the other hand, Gordon Purkis prefers women's writing. He thinks it's superior in many ways and says that the highest percentage of "junk" coming to Mastodon Dentist is from men who don't know when to quit.

True, there are some responders who either just accept Charles' assumption that women are underrepresented in the small press or who enthusiastically agree with it, making this topic one of complexity and one ripe for a full-fledged study. (Too bad I left sociology for poetry.) One conclusion that I strongly draw from these responses, however, is that the number of published women in the small press has increased dramatically in the past few years.

Rosemary Cappello from Philadelphia Poets best summarizes this with her publishing history. She tells us: "When I first started writing poetry back in the 70s, I received enough acceptances to encourage me, but here are some of the rejections I'll never forget. "Why don't you try the women's section of the newspaper?" "Your poem is quite acceptable, but in it, you mention a famous woman. If you change her name to a [certain famous] man's, I'll publish it." She goes on to say that when she first founded, edited and published Philadelphia Poets in 1980, she received more poetry from men than from women. However, now she receives an equal amount of poetry from women, and in her next issue, women will have the edge.

We women have clearly come a long way in the small press world, and there's no reason to think the journey is slowing. Mostly what I see indicates that we are at least close to an overall satisfactory 50/50 publication percentage with our men poetry friends.

We're all in this world of poetry together, and some good advice in these varied query responses came eloquently from Rhina Espaillat, who says, "Certainly there's a need to watch out for injustices and under-representations in any field, but the sooner we can move away from that to a consideration of artists as artists, undifferentiated by sex, religion, national origin, political ideology or any other such category, the more we can concentrate on doing what we do as well as we possibly can, and judging the resulting work on its own merits."

Charles Potts sums up perhaps the best and most succinct conclusion to the matter when he says, "Write well and forget your gender."

__________________________________________

Ellaraine Lockie lives in Sunnyvale, California. She writes poetry, nonfiction books, magazine articles/columns and children's stories. She is a well-published and awarded poet who has received nine nominations for Pushcart Prizes in poetry and has four published chapbooks: Midlife Muse, Poetry Forum; Crossing the Center Line, Sweet Annie Press; Coloring Outside the Lines, The Plowman Press; Finishing Lines, Snark Publishing. Ellaraine also teaches a poetry/writing workshop on the creative process for schools, writing groups and libraries. Her nonfiction books are All Because of a Button: Folklore, Fact and Fiction, St. Johann Press; The Gourmet Paper Maker, Creative Publishing, and The Low Lactose Kitchen Companion and Cookbook forthcoming in 2007. Ellaraine is also a professional papermaker and teaches workshops on the craft. You may find more information about her books and workshops at:

www.musesreview.org/ ellarainelockie.html.

Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over one hundred and forty print and electronic publications. He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio’s Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory. Ries is also the author of five books of poetry — the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/

Poem

Alpha Zulu
by Gary Lilley

I know more people dead than people alive,
my insomniac answer to self-addressed prayers

is that in the small hours even God drinks alone.
My self-portrait; gray locks in the beard, red eyes

burning back in the mirror, the truths of grooves
and nicks on my face, one missing tooth.

I'm a man who's gathered too many addresses,
too many goodbyes. There's not much money

or time left to keep on subtracting from my life.
Except for needs I can pack everything I have

into my old black sea-bag. To all the bloods
I'll raise a bourbon, plant my elbow on the bar

and drink to the odds that one more shot
won't have me wearing a suit of blues.

I'm so exposed, with you all of me is at risk,
and if that's only one side of being in love

that's the one deep down that proves it.
Here you are sleeping with me, narcotic as night,

naked as an open hand, and the skinny of it is,
what makes you think I am afraid of this

when I once lived in a cave, moss on the cold wall,
all my bones scattered across the floor.

I'm going to eat some worms

Yesterday sucked on every level and I am really sick of interferon. The odds are not in my favor of it working anyway. Life is really far to short to have to live like this. Life is a tough enough without the physco drug in my system. so I'm going to head to the garden and water it. Unfortunately it is wormless. Poor plants.

Lucy likes to help

Silly Cat
Can't fold clothes
Tips basket

Poetry By:
Marc Olmsted of Hy-Art

Lucy Blue

Perfect

Ok, I'll stop with the boring poetry for a minute. I'm just obsessed with it at the moment. But I change obsessions often. I'm sure another will be barreling down the pike soon. Funny thing that is, changing compulsions. Got to have one or I feel lost and forlorn. Faulty genetic circuitry no doubt.

So Sunday is start day again for interferon. That would be the third start of this round. Virus didn't come back after two weeks off. I feel pretty good right now and hate to start but it's apparent that it helps my liver, and if I could clear for good I might be able to live with the cirrhosis as it stands now. But I didn't clear the virus three years ago so really theres no likelihood I would this time. So then would rely on the liver transplant. Unfortunately the new liver would eventually deteriorate from the hep-c still in my system.

But its been fun the last two weeks anyway. Gotta count the small stuff. And all my obsessions and compulsions to keep me busy. Boredom is bad news for this girly.

OOOO, tomorrow I am going to be in a parade with adoptable retired greyhounds. Sweet dogs after they have been resocialized. After their time at the track, and they are no longer racing, they usually get put down. There are a number of greyhound rescues in this area. Tuscon, AZ has a big track so the groups go down and get some of the dogs on the hit list and help them find families. Cool, don't you think?

And the dog park update is they have the fence up and the plumbing in. Next, grass seed and grow and three cuttings and about May we will be open. I'm still an honorary (ornery) board member. Cool. See my life is just to cool.

Boyfriend and I have decided to work hard to get me well. He isn't really a bad guy. I've been involved with worse, for sure. We just view things differently. But he's really nice to dogs. Thats the BIG plus I have based my staying in relationship with him on. And he's really funny when he's in the mood to be funny. I look at all the work my sister and her husband have had to work out in their relationship and I get humble.

Well that's life for me today. I'm in bed with my laptop, Lucy Blu is curled up on my feet. Pete's on the floor wishing he could climb the ladder to my bed and the rest of the house hold is off doing what ever it is that they do. Next week.... no I don't want to think about next week. Just want to enjoy my moment. Good night. :+) Sweet dreams. #+}

I'm on a roll now