tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24838881.post1154340987328266903..comments2021-01-17T16:05:49.183-08:00Comments on Magi Gibson : SCOTLAND'S MISSING WOMEN POETS - AND WHY WE NEED THEMMagi Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03021067120365599011noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24838881.post-30611814918719288302019-09-27T11:28:56.782-07:002019-09-27T11:28:56.782-07:00I was, I think, one of those few women poets in No...I was, I think, one of those few women poets in Noise and Smoky Breath. And looking back it was exactly as you say. With a handful of exceptions. The sainted Norman MacCaig - whose poems I like a lot - was not very nice to the female poets who - as I did - consulted him when he was writer in residence at Edinburgh University. I suppose he saw me as one of those 'songstresses'. Did he prefer muses? Maybe so. Had I been less self confident, he would have put me off completely, damning me with faint praise. Robert Garrioch, on the other hand, was encouraging, gentle, magical, inspirational. But he was somehow not part of that inner circle either. Women were indeed seen as muses, aka groupies by so many of these men. I moved on to theatre and lo and behold, the same thing happened. Right after a major critic had been to see Quartz I think it was, at the Traverse, reviewed it well, and ended his review by hoping that such talent would be 'nurtured' - I got nowhere with the next play and any hypothetical nurturing ceased. Submissions were not even acknowledged - until the brilliant and sorely missed David MacLennan staged three of my plays at the Oran Mor. But I wasn't alone. There were other probably more talented female playwrights who were working at the same time, and most of us sank without trace amid the constant and ongoing celebration of male talent. Sharman MacDonald for instance. Google her and she's there, but she was an extraordinary talent and largely unsung. Joan Ure was a heroine. Look at what happened to Ena Lamont Stewart. Let down hugely, ridiculously, tragically. And the amazing Margaret Thomson Davis, whose Breadmakers trilogy isn't deemed worthy of inclusion in the 'literary canon' while lesser male writers get a free pass. Even now, as a well published novelist and non fiction writer, I sometimes feel as though I grow more invisible with each year that passes. Angry? Yes I am. On their behalf as much as my own. Incidentally - I've always been disturbed by that painting of the Scottish poets. I worked part time in the gallery run by the artist, back in the 1970s. His wife introduced me to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, for which I will be forever grateful. That, and The Female Eunuch changed my life. It is hard, now, to persuade younger people of just how revolutionary those books were at a time when there were jobs that, even as a graduate, I couldn't apply for because I was a woman. So when I look at that picture now, with all the benefit of hindsight, I wonder that he seemed so oblivious. Or is it, after all, a commentary on just how masculine that world was? Did he see it for what it was? I just don't know. I hope things have changed, but sometimes I wonder if they really have. As a postscript - recent research for my biographical novel about Jean Armour taught me that for all his faults Robert Burns valued female poets highly. Took many of them seriously. Was willing to discuss and debate with women old and young. Two hundred years later, the male poets of 1960s and 70s Scotland seemed to have regressed somewhat! Catherine Czerkawskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14554969254207924049noreply@blogger.com