We here at Hoochie don’t subscribe to the principle of gender-exclusive art experience. Accordingly, we do not support gender-exclusive art competitions which are organized for any reason other than to remedy differential access to art awards. Such unfairness is not uncommon, but it is not universal. The competition held by MsLexia magazine seems to fall outside of this category. In mildly satirical but nonetheless authentic terms we hereby announce the first-ever Hoochie Woman ‘zine Men’s Women’s Poetry Competition.

WHEREAS literary imagination is an ungendered realm;

WHEREAS a person’s status as a human being accounts for greater differences in their respective experience than their status as a person of gender;

WHEREAS Mslexia magazine’s competition implicitly endorses the notion that men are incapable of writing certain kinds of poetry, and by extension the general principle that some kinds of art are exclusive to some kinds of people;

the editors of Hoochie announce their intent to award a $100 prize to the male poet who submits the poem that best represents a woman’s experience from a woman’s point of view.

Please make sure you have read the rules before submitting.

ENTRY

• Entries may be submitted online, by email to hoochiewomanzine@gmail.com. Payment for your entry may be submitted via PayPal; if you do not have a PayPal account, you will find that you are able to submit a credit card payment to hoochiewomanzine@gmail.com using PayPal without signing up. Please add a $1 processing charge to cover administration. If the email account you use for the electronic payment is different from that you use to submit your poems, please make this known to us.
• Poems may be in any style, of any length, on any subject which addresses woman’s experience or on any subject addressed through a perspective constructed so as to seem like a woman’s. Sequences will be judged as separate poems.
• Each poem should be typed, on A4 paper, single sided and with pages numbered.
• Please do not write your name on the same sheet as your poems. The author’s identity will not be known by those judging the poems.
• Enclose a separate sheet with your name, address, telephone number, email address, plus the title/s of your poem/s.
• Mark your envelope ‘Men’s Women’s Poetry Competition,’ and mail to 95 Melville Avenue, Boston MA 02124, attn. Zachary Bos.
• The entry fee of $5 allows you to enter up to three poems. You may enter as many as many times as you like, provided each set of poems is accompanied by the $5 entry fee.
• Entry fees are payable in dollars American.
• Entries sent by post can be paid for using PayPal; please include notice of your payment confirmation with your poems. Checks should be made payable to the Boston Poetry Union.
• Overseas entries may be submitted by post or online.
• Entries will not be returned; please retain your own copy. If you require acknowledgment of receipt of your entries please list an email address through which we can use to contact you.
• No alterations may be made to a poem once it has been submitted.
• Winners will be contacted in September 2010 and winning poems will be published in the Winter 2010 issue of Hoochie, as well as on the Hoochie blog.
• Copyright of each poem remains with the author, but Hoochie has the unrestricted right to publish the winning poems in print and online, as well as retaining unrestricted rights to use the winning poems and any related material for PR purposes.

ELIGIBILITY

• Poems must concern themselves with the female experience, either indirectly through consideration of some subject related to the female (an ode to pregnancy, for example), or directly through creative imagining of some subject or scenario as if by a woman (for example, a female character considers her own pregnancy).
• Poems should be in English (or English dialect) and should not have been published, self-published or accepted for publication elsewhere, including in online publications.
• Poems that have won or are under consideration in other poetry competitions are not eligible.
• Poems should not be a translation of another author’s work.
• We will accept poems from men of any nationality from any country.
• You do not have to subscribe to notions of gender difference to be eligible, but you do have to be a man. This competition, while not a hoax, is a direct and nearly-satirical challenge to gender-exclusive writing competitions.
• Paid associates of the Boston Poetry Union are not eligible to compete.

For more information or clarification, contact us at hoochiewomanzine@gmail.com. Closing date: 15 August 2010.