Saturday, December 14, 2013

'Teary Hormonal Paste' is so the name of my new punk band

Canadian author and poet Zoe Whittall looked at how female writers are written about in reviews, especially when the reviewers is a man. In what’s called a “found poem,” Whittall culled lines from real reviews in major publications of books by women, but switched the pronouns to male. The result is a jarring look at the sort of tone and ridiculous attention to appearance and judgement of character women face in reviews that are about books.


"Unequal to Me," Zoe Whittall

Much of the novel seems held together with a kind of teary hormonal paste.*


I can sniff out the ink of the men.

But has the author made his parents proud?
What do they think about him writing about sex so brazenly?


There’s just something about his ‘tough boy’ author photo.
He writes self-indulgent fiction.


His house is immaculate, he has three children but there is no
evidence of them.

The floors gleam with perfection.
He’s a publicist’s dream author.


I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know
whether it is by a man or not.

I think [it is] unequal to me.


*More on that here.