Monday, March 29, 2010

Poetry Announcement: Read These Lips, for Starters.

I am very excited today, because one of my poems has been accepted for publication by a lesbian e-lit magazine/journal. It is my first OFFICIAL publication in a poetry journal. Praise be The Lord (The Lord of Lesbian Poets, that is)! The poem will be published in Read These Lips. One of my poems was included in an unofficial poetry journal through the University at Buffalo's English Department (student-run, I believe but am not entirely sure about) back in 2004. They held a reading at a trendy spot in Allentown, but I did not attend. And, for the past two years, a couple of my poems/creative pieces have been included in the Western Illinois University Women's Center's Women's Voices Journal. I was very determined to engage fully in the submission process back in 2007, just after I graduated. I spent a few months editing my work and submitting to journals. I was submitting manuscripts to chapbook contests, too, though in retrospect I know I was aiming too high too soon. The goal then became getting a (single) poem published. Who will want to publish a chapbook of my work when I haven't published a poem? I guess I was foolishly hoping to "be discovered," and to have someone see potential and quality in my work. But that is not how it works.

Once again, I remind myself: the world does not revolve around Jessica Mason McFadden! So then the goal became getting a couple of poems published so that I could have "a list" in my biography, like all the "other people." Every journal that I was reading included biographies of poets with previous publications. I kept wondering, how does anyone ever get a start in the world of publication? If you generally have to be published (to have...a record) to get attention from journals, then how do you tap into that? I think, for many poets, the key is to engage in a network of some sort - either through a community of poets (yes, to engage in "the scene" wherever it/one may be) or through a graduate program in composition. Many graduate students seem to have an easier time "getting involved" and getting published because they are, by virtue of their academic endeavor, involved in and engaged with a community of writers. They also often have the advantage of being published by college journals (which are usually pretty darn credible). I am neither a graduate student nor a person in a geographical area in which a large network of poets (let alone lesbian poets) exist. I am also a stay-at-home mom, who is busy with the simple joys and sometimes daunting tasks of 24/hour, seven-days-a-week childcare.

Once I got pregnant with my first daughter, everything slowed down. Or just stopped. I was sick for three months, so that pulled me right out of the writing world I was trying to enter. From there on out, it was hard to somehow reconcile the two worlds: the childcare world and the world of writing and editing. Childcare is exhausting, breastfeeding is exhausting. It has been hard to get into writing, while feeling so exhausted. In order to write, I will need to do so with MANY interruptions. Unless I work late into the night, which carries its own difficulties (say, waking up early in the morning to start all over again?). I know I have a lot of editing work to do. I enjoy working with my poems, but I need to decide how to work it into childcare. I haven't figured it out yet, but I have managed to get my first poem published. So that's a start. Maybe the start I was looking for, or maybe something else. Time - she will tell. My five month old is crying. It's break time.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Sex, Backwards: Conceptualizing Sexuality

Jessica Mason McFadden thinks sex has too many backward meanings
PKelsey Curious, can you say more? We were just discussing Sarah Baartman in my grad class last night, so this is definitely on my mind....

4 hours ago · SPayne Hmm... Like?

4 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden Funny you should mention Saartjie Baartman, since I recently put this link up on my Facebook page. I was thinking of her after thinking of the ethics of animal zoos in general. http://www.saartjiebaartmancentre.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=66
4 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden I was thinking about something personal, which is - of course - also political. Ah, sexSex - personal, political, nonsensical, exoticized, used for, used against, made of nothing, made into something, constructed, deconstructed, created, defamated, confused with gender, exacerbated, made into art, made into argument, made into entertainment, made into "love" and "romance," used to separate, used to create hierarchies, used to oppress and subjugate, used for exploitation, used for work, used for empowerment, used to create a sense of "otherness" and fear/hate....

4 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden And then there is the whole construction or expansion of the meaning of sex in other forms...in other cultures, communities, worlds...the cyber dimmension, for instance - it certainly has transformed "sex."
Sex -ism, -uality
- constructed identity

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden Sex on a map. A map of sex.
"The Sexes" (the language of "the battle of the sexes")

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden Sex as creation, sex as manipulation, sex as/for profit, sexual abuses, sex and religion/sex as religion/spirituality

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The language of rape...and how it relates to colonization and the oppressions of peoples/women.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The violent dimmension of "sex" - the propagandized transformation of it.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The sexualization of women, of groups of women and peoples as a method of disempowerment and colonization.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The criminalization of sex...also used to disempower women.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The institutionalization of sex.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The objectification.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden The power abuses against land/location and women. The (symbolic and physical) relationships between bodies of land and women's bodies...and the violent treatment of those bodies.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden Penetration...pillaging...of lands/bodies.

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden (okay, that's all for now...baby on my lap is in need of a diaper change)

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden Oh, and the oppressive sexualization of non-european women as a means of creating "otherness"

3 hours ago · Jessica Mason McFadden People often find difficult the fact that Dar and Elan were conceived via a form of "sex" (yes, the insertion of penis into vagina can be problematic for some who want to construct and define lesbianism and monogamy in "certain terms"/"in a box"). Even I found it difficult, in my own way at certain times. Our constructions of what it means to be a lesbian AND our constructions of what it means to engage in "sex" can create a lot of discomfort and misunderstanding. When we cannot lay it all out neatly into a category, fear often starts to trickle in...

3 hours ago · PKelsey Thanks, Jess, I always feel I learn from you and your intellectual process. It's no coincidence that to the left of this comment box I see bell hooks is your social theoretical identity. Love to you, P.

about an hour ago · Jessica Mason McFadden Love to you! (We typically don't say "Sex to you!") Wish I was in your grad class...

55 minutes ago · ACarr Jess, it sounds like you've a paper or book in the making here . . .

53 minutes ago · PKelsey I'd love to have you in the grad class, Jessica! And it's true, I think you have a book (or seven) in you at any given moment.