Women use "womb" to re-appropriate it and re-unite (or re-differ) themselves, their bodies, their places of production. This may simply mean beating the master at his own game. But it may also mean asserting difference on differences. In the first case, the question is chiefly that of erecting inverted images and defying prohibitions. ...In the second case -- that of asserting difference on differences -- the question of writing (as a) woman is brought a step further. ... Motherhood as lived be women often has little to do with motherhood as experienced by men. The mother cannot be reduced to the mother-hen, the wet-nurse, the year-round cook, the family maid, or the clutching, fear-inspiring matron. ...Laying claim to the specificity of women's sexuality and the rights pertaining to it is a step we have to go through in order to make ourselves heard; in ordier to beat the master at his own game. But reducing everything to the order of sex does not, obviously, allow us to depart from a discourse directed within the apparatuses of sexuality. Writing does not translate bisexuality. It (does not express language but) fares across it.
Women + Poetry
Monday, January 18, 2010
Trinh T. Minh-ha
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
ICE IN INTERVALS: The Books are IN!!!!

This super-cool collection of poetry by the inimitable Laura Goldstein is hot of the press!

ICE IN INTERVALS
Poems by Laura Goldstein
©Laura Goldstein
Published in Goleta, CA
by Hex Presse in October 2008
in an edition of 100 copies
excerpt from the collection:

Books printed by a locally-owned print shop on high-quality recycled paper. Full-color cover, saddle stitched, hand-numbered, 32 pages. Available for $7 at the Hex Presse shop.
Laura Goldstein is a writer and text/sound artist living and working in Chicago. She currently teaches writing at Loyola University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA from Temple University. She went to Penn before that. Her sound and reading performances as well as installations have been exhibited in Philadelphia, Ireland, Chicago and Michigan. She's been published online in Otoliths, The Little Magazine, Great Works, MPRSND, Womb and PFS Post and in print in Combo, Dorothy's Elbow and XConnect.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
New Issue of Womb Poetry: Skeins and Schisms

featuring work by:
Dorothea Lasky
Helen White
Michele Burnett
Julie Strand
Bonnie Emerick
Kristine Ong Muslim
Melinda Wilson
Tara Betts
Susan Slaviero
Jessica Smith
Amanda Ackerman
Megan Kaminski
Nicole Cartwright Denison
Elisa McCool
T.A. Noonan
Maureen Alsop
Constance Merritt
Talia Reed
Tara McDaniel
Jessica Bozek
Juliet Cook
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Mercury in Retrograde



Hit me hard. My computer crashed, and so the next issue of WOMB is being rebuilt from scratch. So, I'm hoping to have things perking by the solstice.
Without my computer, I had plenty of time to make new poetry jewelry for the Hex Presse shop. Check it out.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Coming Soon

I'm working on galleys for the next issue of WOMB. Also, planning to get caught up with the Hex Presse projects. I've had a rough winter, but I'm feeling ready to leave the cave.
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Womb will be reading submissions for the fall issue in August. Any submissions received before will be held until then. If you've submitted something in the last few months and you have yet to hear from me, you can expect a response within the next week.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
WOMB POETRY :: EQUINOX ISSUE

WOMB POETRY :: EQUINOX ISSUE
featuring work by
Kelli Russell Agodon
Nicole Cooley
Kate Greenstreet
Luisa A. Igloria
Eve Rifkah
Jennifer Karmin + vispo
Nicki Hastie
Raina León
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Arlene Biala
Nava Fader
C Mehrl Bennett
Laura Goldstein
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Kristen Orser
Pearl Pirie
Kathryn Douglas
Angela Veronica Wong
Juliet Cook
Lillian Baker Kennedy
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Best of the Net Nominations
http://www.wombpoetry.com/king
IN CASE OF SPINE
Elizabeth Treadwell
http://www.wombpoetry.com
3 from Virginia or the mud-flap girl
Holaday Mason
http://www.wombpoetry.com
Claimed
Anne Heide
http://www.wombpoetry.com
from The Blue City
Ebony Golden
http://www.wombpoetry.com
hocking a wedding ring
Eileen Tabios
http://www.wombpoetry.com
from "EVERYONE TOUCHED BY / LIGHT BECOMES / SAINT"
(—after David Baptiste-Chirot's "After Rimbaud's Illuminations")
find out more about "best of the net" here.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
Poetry Puzzles
Poetry Puzzles inspired by Mina Loy, Sylvia Plath, and Elizabeth Bishop. More coming soon!
The letters of six words from a single poem are gathered and stored in glass specimen jars. "Sestina," "Fever 103," and "Lunar Baedeker" come in a triangular jars and contain brightly-colored letter beads which allow the player/puzzler to experience the letters synesthetically. Because the letters are also impressed on the beads, once can "feel" the letters, thus allowing for the experience of "feeling" and "seeing" as simultaneous acts of "reading." The puzzle jars can be emptied and their letter contents "solved" to spell the words from the poem. The letters can be used to make anagrams and new words also. In addition to letters, other materials are harvested and added to the jar for further delight and stimulation. These additional materials are carefully selected and are -- to a certain degree -- intended to conjure sensory details related to the poem which inspired the puzzle. Something for each of the *six* senses is contained in each Hex Presse Specimen Jar Poetry Puzzle. This "syntax of tangibles" can be used to create poems, to conjure new ideas, and to amuse, delight, and inspire. For students of poetry, Hex Presse Specimen Jar Poetry Puzzles enhance understanding and enjoyment of the poetry. Like Cleromancy games, Hex Presse Specimen Jar Poetry Puzzles are an exciting, surprising, and unique way to engage with poetry.
Forthcoming Cleromancies
#1 EMILY DICKINSON curated by Michelle Detorie (june 2007)
#2 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI ("cup-like lilies") curated by Jessica Smith (july 2007)
# 3 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI ("a summer wish") curated by Jessica Smith (july 2007)
forthcoming (not necessarily in the order in which they will be published)
GWENDOLYN BROOKS curated by Evie Shockley
GERTRUDE STEIN curated by kathryn l. pringle and Magdalena Zurawski
LORINE NIEDECKER curated by Julia Drescher
JUNE JORDAN curated by Alexis Pauling Gumbs
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING curated by Catherine Daly
AUDRE LORDE curated by Kate Greenstreet
VIRGINIA WOOLF curated by Michalle Gould
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY curated by Susana Gardner
ALICE CHILDRESS curated by Cherryl Floyd-Miller*
*Hex Presse will also be publishing a special-edition author-curated Cleromancy by Cherryl Floyd-Miller. More about this in Spring 2008.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Cleromancy Poetry Game # 2, "cup-like lilies" : CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, curated by JESSICA SMITH
******six word dice for poetry, divination, and play******
*Cleromancy Poetry Game # 2, "cup-like lilies," is sourced from the work of Christina Rossetti
*Curated by Jessica Smith
*Six dice; each side of each dice has a different word (for a total of 36 words)
*Comes in a hexagon shaped box
*Dice and box are pyrographed and inked by hand
*Roll the dice to make poems or divinations






Cleromancy is a form of divination using sortilege, casting lots or casting bones in which an outcome is determined by random means, such as the rolling of a dice.
___________________________________
Cleromancy Games are published in *very* limited editions (there will only be six of each). Due to their handmade nature and differences in the patterns and texture of the woodgrain, each Cleromancy game is entirely unique.
____________________________________
Jessica Smith edits Outside Voices Press, an umbrella for Outside Voices Books, Take-Home Project chapbooks, and FOURSQUARE magazine. Her first book, Organic Furniture Cellar, is available from the Press website at outsidevoices.org
____________________________________
There will be MORE cleromancy poetry games from Hex Presse. Each game will be sourced from "woman-authored texts"** and contemporary poets will be invited to "curate" the dice. Cleromancy #3 also will be curated by Jessica Smith and sourced from the work of Christina Rossetti. Cleromancy #4 will be curated by Michalle Gould and sourced from the work of Virginia Woolf.
**open to interpretation :)
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Updates
1.) Womb is open for submissions throughout July.
2.) I am updating the blogroll. If you identify as a woman + make poems + blog, please leave a link to your blog in the comments if you do not see your name in the sidebar. Also, if you know of a blog that I have missed, please leave a link.
xoxoxo Michelle
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Call for Submissions: Summer Mini-issue
~*~W_O_M_B~*~ is intended to showcase the innovative and intriguing and electrifying work of contemporary poets who self-identify as women. We also hope to provide links to resources that are of particular interest to women poets, and to build a comprehensive blogroll of women poets who blog. If you'd like to suggest a link, please e-mail femme feral at gmail dot com. We believe this will be a vital contribution to the exciting world of online poetry journals and to the community of poets who blog.
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
*WOMB publishes the work of people who self-identify as a woman
*Please send 3-6 poems as inline text (in the body of an e-mail) or as .doc or .rtf or .pdf attachment.
*We also welcome submissions of audio, visual, tactile, and collage poetry. To submit poetry of this nature, please attach a sound file or jpeg/pdf image of your work. If the work is hosted online, you can also just send us a link. If you think the file is too large to send via e-mail, please contact us to obtain a snail mail address.
*If you are interested in submitting hypertext or video poetry or poetry that requires a flash player, please send a file that is viewable using quicktime or real player. Again, if you think your file is too large to send via e-mail, please contact us to obtain a snail mail address.
*Collaborations and translations are also welcome.
*If you are interested in submitting something that does not fit into any of the above descriptions, that's fine. Just help us out by providing us with a brief description of the piece.
*Please query if you are interested in doing a book review. We can't offer review copies at the moment, but we would love to hear from you if you would like to share your thoughts about a book.
* Send all submissions to wombpoetry at gmail dot com
NUTS AND BOLTS:
* We are open for submissions from July 1, 2007 to July 30, 2007. Issue 1.5 will launch in late August 2007.
*Please put your name and date in the subject line of your e-mail. Please also include a cover letter with a brief bio so that we can get to know you a little bit.
*Simultaneous submissions are allowed, just let as know asap if a piece has been accepted elsewhere.
*Please note that we do not consider previously published work (however we are willing to consider work that has been posted to a personal blog; if this is the case, please make a note in your cover letter).
*Expect a response by the first week of August. Since this is a mini-issue, we'll only be accepting a small handful of submissions. We'll begin reading for our super-sized annual issue in October.
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