Letters to the World: poems from the Wom-po listserv
Dear friends and readers,
ON the Wompo listserv, a member, Lesley Wheeler, has posted a URL to an essay she wrote on the Wom-po community:
A Salon with a Revolving Door: Virtual Community and the Space of Wom-po, Contemporary Women’s Writing, an Oxford online Journal.
It is a defense of listserv life from the point of view of this listserv set up to discuss women’s poetry, and be haven for women poets and those interested in women’s poetry; goals included meeting other women poets and creating a healthy women’s community. I’ve been a member of a member of for some years now and remember when we first bruited the idea of publishing an anthology of poems by the members (interspersed with prose comments on the listserv community), Letters to the World. Lesley’s article is valuable for putting into some permanent (traditionally respected form) a history of this community, for treating it with respect, and pointing out some of the significant functions such listservs can play in real people’s lives.
Lesley’s essay also shows real respect for the members of the wompo listserv, and its peculiar formations. Perhaps though she does somewhat over emphasize the function or centrality of the famous respected people over and over again. They are attractions to other people and can help keep people posting (if mostly through backchanneling). Her choice of topic too — international versus national conversations, how location actually does figure in what is said and to whom and about what — needs to be thought about more. It’s not that overwhelming a thread at all, though the outsider-insider nexus is a central part of the experience (so we all do know who are the dogs on the Net and who cannot be kicked). I wish she had developed the importance of conversation as community more. It seems to me that’s the central insight of her essay. When conversation dies, the community vanishes.
A wee correction: it was not I who started Wompo Wednesday. It was a part of the listserv conventions when I came: on Wednesday all are invited to put poems by contemporary living women onto the listserv. Joelle Biele has been keeping that up still, with a occasional people joining on to comment or contribute a poem or two. I did pick up on it and kept it up for a while with them. The same goes for Foremother Friday. There I made more of it than had been intended: I not only posted poems by women who were poet foremothers (at first they had to have died sixty years since), but also contributed little lives and a short piece of criticism and I did it regularly for a number of years and 30 of my pieces became part of their Wompo festival site and listserv Foremothers Corner. But it was there as a option for posting something for Friday when I came on, others have kept it up since I gave over doing it so regularly and began to put the postings here on this (Foremother poets) and my other blog too (Austen Reveries group).
I regret there’s never been one on Kevin Berland’s C18-l nor Patrick Leary’s Victoria (so far as I know) and also none on Austen-l: too much prejudice surrounds these unexclusive virtual community groups (especially from those inside exclusive coterie groups in academia or publishing), and Austen-l has suffered bouts of flame wars and (to be honest) trolls and a ruthless use of it for self-advertisement (so that anything can be said about Austen, no matter how improbable) and insufficient moderation (it has no owner in this sense). But Austen-l has been a real wide-ranging known community fostering all sorts of people as beginning writers as well as scholars and Janeites. A number of people have told me this (Cindy James who wrote My Jane Austen Summer comes to mind and is one of many many).
These listserv communities have meant so much to me and I know to others. For me they have given me a life I did not have before, could never have had any other way (like others in this I know), one I value and cherish and try to sustain. I see the same happening for other people who have stayed on listservs and opened blogs and websites; for individual friends, my daughters, their friends. I’ve published four times on listserv communities I’ve been part ofP: my Trollope on the Net is 50% about the people reading Trollope’s novels, how we went about it and what we said; my “On reading divergent Fanny Burney d’Arblays” and “Johnson and Boswell Forever” describe and commemorate two reading and discussions we had on Eighteenth-Century Worlds @ Yahoo, and my “Women in Cyberspace” is about cyberspace is a strongly gendered experience, differing in significant ways for women and men. This one Joan Korenman, listowner of the long-time WMST-l was genderous enough to place on the Net as one of the permanent papers of the community of women scholars. I am aware the word “community” with all its unexamined positive resonances is one some people refuse to see as real in cyberspace (sometimes I feel in meanness, sometimes ignorance, sometime fear because they’ve had or heard of bad experiences) and Leslie addresses this question too. The greatest red herring in debates over cyberspace life is that it takes you away from all your others social worlds: lots of people have few or small and uncongenial social worlds and should shout that out as central to the outsider/insider nexus.
Ellen
Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two 
Diane Reynolds: a friend on several listservs: “I agree that, although a latecomer who only arrived a few years ago, I have very much appreciated the Austen lists. I have learned a tremendous amount. I’ve found the conversations often quite stimulating, and love the fact that it’s a place where I–and others–can throw out “crazy” ideas and see what happens. I love that it is an egalitarian environment, open to all comers. I have been pleasantly surprised, though I have not sought it, to have made some good cyber friends as a result of these lists. The flame wars have dismayed me, and I although I get beside myself with frustration sometimes at them, I have not wanted to abandon the lists because so much good comes from them. I too am glad that we [on Austen-l lately] are managing to get along these days.”
Diana Birchall: “I was thinking the other day how good these lists are, and Diane and Ellen inspire me to add another reason. That is, the lists, despite occasional problems and deficiences (such as the loud personality clashes), are one of the few places where there is serious examination into the truth about Jane Austen as a writer and a person going on continually. Sites and blogs about Austen have proliferated to explosion point, and some are very good in their way: I’ve read many excellent and informative historical background pieces, splendidly illustrated, on some of the best blogs. But no one is doing the kind of literary/biographical ongoing study that we are collectively doing here. Certainly academics are individually working on Austen, all over the world, but for the most part they pursue special, separate
projects. Here, we consult together, examine the whole picture, and hash
things out. I find it a curiously vital learning and thinking experience.”
Some more clarifications of Lesley’s article on Wom-po:
“Lesley’s wonderful articleis so exciting and really establishes a trajectory for WOM-PO. I loved reading it! Now that I’ve read it more thoroughly, I see it includes an inaccuracy about the herstory of the founding of WOM-PO, which I would like to clarify.
The article quotes D’Arcy Randall as follows: “Late in 1997, WOM-PO was established by five women poets . . .”. I am proud to say that I started the WOM-PO list at Miami University in 1997 and was its sole founder—or as some called me, the “listmom.” I got the idea for the WOM-PO list (for exactly the reasons D’Arcy mentioned!), thought of the name, made arrangements with Miami University to host it on their server, set up all the technical aspects, including the archives, and sent out invitations. I recall inviting 11 poets and critics I respected and liked and thought would make a good “starter” (like a yeast starter when baking sourdough).
The article also states that WOM-PO was “lightly moderated.” However, for at least the first five years, WOM-PO required me to moderate and facilitate heavily, dealing with a host of community issues including how to handle news items, inclusiveness, aesthetic focus, and so on. I can recall spending hours at a time, often late at night, dealing with the many early challenges of building and guiding a women-focused online community.
After Marilyn Hacker, Gwyn McVay, Marilyn Nelson, Susan Schultz, and Kathrine Varnes had accepted my invitation, on December 18, 1997, I wrote the first post:
Dear list,
Since five people have already signed up to WOM-PO, it doesn’t seem too
soon for the first post. WELCOME to all of us!!! I am excited about the kinds of things we can discuss on this list. My first question, however, is procedural. I’m forwarding a copy of a message that could be passed on to others you think may want to subscribe. You’ll notice that I toned down (actually omitted) the wording about it starting off as a woman-only space. I guess I got cold feet and didn’t want to alienate women who would find that a problem. On the other hand, it’s our list! Do you want to keep that wording and try to encourage our femaleness? How valuable is that potential feature?
Thanks–
Annie
And from that time on, WOM-PO became the collaborative effort it is now.
Love to all,
Annie
P.S. I also need to correct one other error, this time an error of my own from my previous email this morning: my daughter Althea was not born 3 days before WOM-PO was founded, but 362 days after it was founded, in December 1998!
“Dear Annie and Diane,
My Introduction to Letters to the World mentions the first five members, but clearly credits Annie as Wom-Po founder. On p. 25, the second paragraph describes how Annie invited me to join the list in early 1998, but then the third paragraph opens: “Finch had founded Wom-po two months earlier, in December 1997. That month, the list membership grew from an original cluster of five to approximately thirteen…”
Yes, we were exasperated by our experiences on other listservs; we discussed them face-to-face or in backchannel. But Annie went to efforts I can scarcely imagine to generate–and maintain–a space for us to transform that exasperation into energy. I was, and remain, grateful for her initiative–and for what Wom-Po has since become.
best,
D’Arcy”
Anonymously from Wom-po: “And for me , here in Iran ,WOM_PO was and is like a rainbow, shining day and night with various precious voices .Thank you Annie for inviting me to WOM-PO. My mornings begin with poetic messages, the best thing in this world
.
Dreamlike , I can go beyond the borders and meet other poets from the
other countries with no need to passport and suitcase and free of fear
of receiving belittling words and behaviors at airports.”.
It’s an important question whether people should try for an all-woman space in cyberspace. The motives might be partly equivalent to sustaining all women-colleges, high-schools too. Here in the US there are still a few all-women colleges, but many have been amalgamated with the “mens'” colleges they were originally a female twin too, filled with women excluded from the prestigious male school. Others have found they haven’t got enough women wanting to go to an all-female school. Most of all there’s the problem of funding. As Woolf said so long ago in her _Room of One’s Own_, women just do not have the big money men do, and it’s women alumnae who largely fund these all-women colleges — or so is my impression from my daughter’s alma mater, Sweet Briar. The danger (or what keeps some of them all-women) is that if they allow men in, that changes the whole school and the funding from the alumnae will break off.
From what I gather it was not found possible to be all-women. That excluded male publishers and important male writers and poets and bloggers who wanted to be part of the group. The women on the list themselves did not want to be in a segregated community (as it was seen). Since I came on I’ve seen that argument made: it becomes a ghetto and since men have much more respect, wom-po is like a giraffe with its head in the sand. There does seem to be a strong impulse in contemporary culture to shut down places given wholly over to a given gender or race. There are now few all male schools in the US too.
Something important is lost for women and minorities: it’s more than a haven; it’s a different place where alternative values really can be fostered.
On a separate tack; Having famous or respected published women or an attachment to a profession counts too. My small WomenWriters list remains small because we have few of this (a little we do). Only one man was willing to join and post who was not a gay man and thus far we’ve had only two gay guys on the list posting. Otherwise men won’t join. So anything said there I suppose doesn’t “count” at all.
And being attached to an institution is important too — it brings respect
I’ve no more time this morning, but do throw out these thoughts to encourage others to offer some serious thinking on this.
Ellen
Thanks so much, Ellen! I’ll correct that point in whatever the article’s next iteration may be (part of an eventual book, I hope). And thanks for the link, too–I’ve only had a quick glance at the paper so far but it looks highly relevant. Seems to address the barriers to women’s participation on the web, right? That’s something I really came to appreciate about wompo as I worked on the article. It’s low-tech nature is a really important part of its success.
And thanks for all your postings; I appreciate how much you bring to our “space.”
Lesley
Dear Lesley,
Thank you for making the change ahead of time — if you get the chance.
My paper is not just about the barriers to women but the way women experience cyberspace differently, partly psychological conditioning, but strongly the way women are treated on the Net is analogous to the way they are treated in physical space. Wom-po is itself a strong-minded reaction to such treatment. Okay, let’s make a space of our own.
I appreciate being with all the wonderful women and men. I really do. It makes me more alive, has enrichened my experience immeasurably, and in the world.
Ellen