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Open Letter from the Editor

I learned yesterday that a poet whose work was published in Bestiary Issue Two is a fictitious person. The poem published under the name Winnie Oliver was in fact written by a writer named Jennifer Donnell. Normally, nom de plums don’t interest me one way or another, but in this case, I became frustrated, and then angry when I learned the reason behind Donnell’s decision to use this alias.

In an editorial published at poetix.net, Donnell reveals that she is a married, straight woman who decided to pose as a lesbian because she had grown frustrated with the submissions process of Write Bloody Publishing, who accept submissions only via an annual book contest. She entered Write Bloody’s 2010 contest using poems she’d written because she felt she could identify with the struggles and frustrations of gays and lesbians – in her words, she “had always felt “different” due to a hemangioma birthmark” on her cheek.

She went so far as to create a fake Facebook account, send friend requests to people she believed would indicate to Derrick Brown, owner of Write Bloody, that she was a real person, including myself and several of my friends. And she submitted a poem to this magazine’s second issue, which was accepted, because it was a good poem.

Write Bloody’s contest is annual, and in the year between when her first manuscript was rejected and her second, as Winnie, was an honorable mention, Donnell exposed herself to new writers, did a 30/30 exercise (where a poet will write 30 poems in 30 days), and submitted to new journals — in short, she did the work all poets should always be doing, and I suspect that it was that work, and not the pseudonym, that improved the quality of Donnell’s writing.

Whether or not the poem in question required that Donnell pretend to be a lesbian while writing it is up for debate. I’m fairly certain it could have been written without such machinations, and what’s more, I’m of the opinion that Donnell was ultimately only fooling herself — it was she, Donnell, who wrote the poem, not Winnie Oliver, and she could have written the poem without the pretense.

But what really bothers me about this whole business is not the deception, although that is troubling — it’s the deeper sexual and gender politics at play. Co-opting the identity of an oppressed group in order to fuel creative work isn’t merely distasteful, it’s actually a very willing participating in the (in this case) heterosexist power structures about which she is clearly very angry.

The white male patriarchy has a long history of co-opting the voices of women, non-white, trans-gendered, and gay people, sometimes for explicit purposes of exploitation, and sometimes for no other reason than to succeed in some creative genre. An easy example of this is Shakespeare’s Othello, which, in Elizabethan England, where neither women nor blacks were allowed to perform onstage, was performed by two male leads, one in blackface playing Othello and the other in whiteface playing Desdemona. Both of those roles are fraught with incredibly complex racist and sexist tropes.

Gays and lesbians have struggled, in the face of anti-gay laws, oppressive, unhealthy and hate-based narratives from religion and dehumanizing narratives and stereotypes from Hollywood to claim their right to speak for themselves and have their own words about their own struggles, pain, and sorrow be heard above the din of so many cultural voices who have sought to either oppress or exploit them.

So part of my frustration at Donnell’s choices comes from the fact that she deliberately chose to participate in that oppressive structure, and all because she didn’t win the Write Bloody contest the first time she entered, and because her overjealous husband sent rude emails to Derrick Brown.

My anger comes from the fact that my many queer friends who are writers deserve that space Winnie Oliver occupied, or rather, co-opted. We have heard enough of straight people think about how queer people ought to feel. Queer folk do not need straight people speaking for them. It is condescending, patriarchal, rude, and selfish to assume that as a straight person, one can speak on behalf of queer folk.

And my sadness comes from the fact that one thing straight folk can do, and do not do enough of yet, is examine themselves, their own sexuality, and their own participation in heterosexist structures that continue to silence and oppress queer folks. Ms. Donnell’s role, if she is truly angered by what is happening to queer people, is not to pretend to the queer, her role is to be a straight ally.

Early on in her essay, Donnell relates the story of another straight woman who is Mormon and who had gay friend but didn’t share Donnell’s rage at the way the Mormon church was treating the gay marriage debate. She reports she doesn’t speak to that friend any more, and one part of me doesn’t blame her for not wanting to be close to a bigot, but on the other hand, I totally do blame her.

Having grown up in the South, and having been raised evangelical, I am close to, by blood or by friendship, a great many bigots, either racists or heterosexists. Because I love them, I am unwilling to shut them out of my life, and I am ever hopeful that in the end, compassion will win out in their heats against prejudice and ignorance. My stepmother told me, when I was a child, the story of how, when she was in college during the 19060s, she would bring home black friends to visit to challenge her racist father. She argued with him. I don’t know that she ever felt like she changed his mind, but she tried. twenty years later, during a heated dinner table discussion about gay marriage, I reminded her of that story: “Remember how you used to challenge Papa’s beliefs about race? I know it’s annoying, but I’m that same thing now, for you, about sexuality.”

I don’t know that I’ll ever know if my parents or my friends from my church days change their minds. And making my opinion known requires that I risk offending them – no one likes the be thought of as ignorant or bigoted. But I’m committed to try, and that is what I believe straight people who are allies of queer folk ought to be doing with their voices. Our own stories — stories of our own fears and homophobia, of how we “came out” of that fear into tolerance, then acceptance, and finally love, stories of our anger at injustice — those stories are stories we are uniquely equipped to tell, and by choosing to hide, in a rather cowardly fashion, behind Winnie Oliver, Donnell has denied other straight people the benefit of that self-examination.

And cowardly is what Donnell’s behavior has been. It is easy to be a mockingbird. It is much harder to do the real emotional work a poet must undertake to examine her/his own bigotry, ignorance, heterosexism, participation in oppression and how we benefit daily, even still, by the continued systematic oppression of queer folks.

That is my challenge to Donnell, and to any straight person rightly concerned with heterosexism, or any white person rightly concerned with racism, or any man rightly concerned with sexism: examine yourself, and write about it. Don’t tell me the world is sexist, racist, heterosexist. Tell me that you are, and how. Tell me the story of your own healing and education. And rejoice in, enjoy, listen to, learn from the many amazing, talented writers out there who have something to show you about themselves. Step outside your own neighborhood. Risk being wrong. Learn why your life requires grace. Write about that.

- John Paul Davis, editor Bestiary Magazine

Issue Three

Hello everyone – due to some very good things happening to our editor, we have been slower than we liked getting poems selected and moving the process forward. Apologies for this. In the meantime, we are leaving poetry submissions open. Thanks for you patience.

Issue Two is Ready!

Well, I have to say I’m pretty excited. Issue Two: Hip-Hop took a lot longer to come together than I ever expected, but it’s now complete, and available for ordering at MagCloud. I’ve been sitting on these poems and this artwork for several months, which has been difficult, because I’m really proud of how the poets represented here have deeply explored the subject of hip-hop, of which I am a big fan, but with which I have a complicated relationship (as I imagine many of our readers have as well.) Hip-hop is music and culture, and it’s our relationships to those things. The poems and art here explore hip-hop as an celebrity culture, a musical history, a participatory sport, a cause for concern, a highlighter of racism, a transmitter of racism, and a source of hope.

Another cause for excitement: MagCloud has added the ability to offer digital versions of the magazine. If you’re an e-book person, or just can’t wait to read the issue, you’re in luck, because digital versions are available for half price, unless you buy the print issue – then you get both for the price of the print issue. MagCloud also has an iPad app, which displays the magazine beautifully.

Finally, I’m pleased to announce the topic for Issue Three: Water. We’ll be opening submissions in a few days, along with posting guidelines for the topic. Stay tuned, and enjoy Issue Two: Hip-Hop!

- John Paul Davis

Topics for Issue Two

Art submissions for Issue Two: Hip Hop are now open.

Please visit our Art Submissions page for guidelines on submitting art.

We’re looking for art, photography, illustration about hip hop culture in general and the following topics in specific:

tagging
graffiti
Rick Ross
Eminem
Grandmaster Flash
Beastie Boys
battling
Kanye West
Rihanna
KRS-One
Afrika Bambaataa
breakdancing in 1979
50 Cent
Lil Kim
Dr. Dre
Lil Wayne
DJ Shadow
The Roots
rural hip hop

Issue Two Poets

Hello! Back from vacation, and we’ve got the list of poets whose work has been accepted for Issue Two: Hip Hop!

Adrian Matejka
Anis Mojgani
Mahogany Browne
Tara Betts
Khary Jackson
F. Douglas Brown
Rob Sturma
Stevie Edwards
Kai Huang
Aaron Counts
Tim Stafford
Oscar Bermeo
Winnie Oliver
Billy Tuggle
Darrel Alejandro Holmes
Matt Gano
Dan Sullivan
Kevin Coval
Alison Weiss

Information about art submissions will be posted later this week.

Hip Hop!

The topic for Issue Two will be: Hip Hop. Submissions are open now; they close July 7.

It’s a kind of music. It’s a culture. It’s a marketing scheme. Send us your poems that celebrate, examine and investigate hip hop. Poems that go out of their way to surprise, move, delight are encouraged; we’ll be less likely to enjoy poems that go to the normal place (e.g. elegies for Tupac and Notorious B.I.G., while perhaps sincere, are less interesting to us because the topics have already been widely explored). Please use the poetry submission form to send your poems. Below are some links to poems about hip hop that we enjoy, to give you some inspiration. Good luck!

Freddie by Patrick Rosal
Rock The Body Body by Major Jackson
Battle Rhyme For The Rhetorical Disenfranchisers by Adrian Matejka
Hip Hop Ghazal by Patricia Smith
History of the Ardenwood B-Boys by Jason Byani (scroll to last poem)
Meditating On Lil Wayne – Roger Bonair-Agard
10 for T-Pain by Adam Falkner

Poets in Issue One

We got a lot of really good, interesting, diverse poetry, and had a difficult time selecting the poems that made the final cut. We’ll be sending out acceptance letters to the poets later this week with specifics about which poems were selected, etc.

For now, though, here’s whose poetry you’ll be seeing in Issue One:

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Greg Bee
Roger Bonair-Agard
Jesse Bradley
Sara Brickman
Eric Leonhardt Brown
Benjamin Clark
James Thurston Davis
Stevie Edwards
Aricka Foreman
Stacy Fox
Kurt Eric Heintz
Molly Meacham
Marty McConnell
Sarah Morgan
Lewis Mundt
Gregory Pickett
Sarah Quenon
Shappy Seasholtz
Tristan Silverman
Rob Sturma
Megan Thoma
Geoff Kagan Trenchard
Jeannan Verlee
Donna Voreyer
Karrie Waarala
Laura Yes Yes

Art Submissions for Issue One

Attention artists! Submissions are now open for Issue One. They’ll remain open until noon on Monday June 14. Please read the submission guidelines for artists. We’re accepting visual art of all kinds, so long as it can be printed in a magazine. Once your artwork is ready, send it to us using the submission form.

Below are the animals found in the poems we chose:

• tyrannosaur
• triceratops
• cicada
• fireflies
• giraffe
• amoeba
• beagle
• elephant
• moth
• pigeon
• duck
• otter
• show dogs
• hyena
• cat
• monkey
• prairie dog
• whale, exploding
• deer, urban
• cow
• crow
• dog
• dragon
• frogs
• horse
• hydras
• coelenterates
• corals
• jellies

Submissions for Issue One Are Closed

Thanks to everyone who submitted. The names of everyone chosen to appear in Issue One will be announced June 9, along with topics of the poems for artists to work from.

Animals!

The topic for Issue One is: Animals! We’re looking for poems whose main image or topic is an animal (or all of them). Submissions close at noon on Monday, June 7. Please use the poetry submission form to send your poems. Below are some links to poems about animals already published that we enjoy, to give you some inspiration. Good luck!

Magic Mouse by Mark Doty
Loading A Boar by David Lee
Horses by Wendell Berry
Animals by Frank O’Hara
Why I Shouldn’t Read Books by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Dogs by Ross Gay
Heaven by Dorothy Barresi (scroll down)
Communion by Jeanann Verlee