Poetry anthologies should reflect women’s work | Poetry

“Feminism,” I once heard Margaret Atwood say, in her marvellously laconic drawl, “is the new ‘F’ word”. She neatly encapsulated the backlash of recent decades against the lively, eloquent, radical activists for women’s rights whose works formed the bedrock of my earliest education and thinking. Women who were not afraid to shock and cajole, such as Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, Erica Jong, and Gloria Steinem.

The poets who rose to prominence in that era were also uncompromising, and fiercely feminine. Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Adrienne Rich were warriors, precursors of a flood of new talent that would confidently arise in the latter half of the 20th century. I was lucky to begin my university studies when these strong women writers were making their mark on the new canon of the period. I was also lucky enough to witness the arrival of the next generation of poets, including Sharon Olds, Molly Peacock, Jorie Graham, Louise Glück and Carol Ann Duffy. Now, I find that after nearly 20 years in poetry publishing, there are dozens more names on this list of women poets of note.

But I have also noticed something peculiar. The great flowering of talent that I could see from my reading was not reflected in the mainstream anthologies of poetry being produced.

I had long harboured a dream of compiling an anthology of these women writers, but had been deflected by the resistance that I felt from at least two prominent women writers in Wales, Sheenagh Pugh and Ruth Bidgood, both of whom had turned down similar projects. I knew also that the estate of one of the finest women poets of the 20th century, Elizabeth Bishop, turned down requests for her poems to be reprinted in such books. Bishop took the line, a line that seemed to be echoed by some later poets, that to be in a women-only anthology is a kind of ghettoisation of women’s work rather than helping to establish a more inclusive canon.

I’ve always been active in local politics and witnessed a hard-fought battle in the Welsh Assembly elections over all-women shortlists. Many were against it for similar reasons that the poets gave against women-only anthologies, but it resulted in a new government that, for a time, was the only elected body in the world that could boast that it represented its electorate in the same proportion as the population, with over 50% women.

It brought home to me the point that a just balance must often be fought for and not just left to the good will and better instincts of those involved. How often the introductions of current anthologies, edited by men, pay lip service to the quality of women’s writing without fully reflecting this in their choice of contents.

Meeting the New York poet Eva Salzman was the catalyst that set this project in motion. Talking to her reinforced my own recent impressions about the dearth of women in the newer anthologies and how it was time to show just how far this “ghetto” had been upgraded to prime real estate. And so, three years later, after a considerable number of adventures tracking down the 271 contributors – only 10 of whom are out of copyright – we’ve finally produced our baby: Women’s Work. Let’s see if our baby can start to even things up a bit.