Helena Nelson
Genderalisation
Women keep scales in their bedrooms;
men keep weights.
Women eat flaky pastries and sticky toffee pudding with cream;
men eat steaks.
Women worry about breasts, buttocks and cellulite on thighs;
men watch them.
Women read about colourful new ways of preparing fish;
men catch them.
Women go shopping for pleasure;
men don’t.
Women do their best to ignore cricket, golf, snooker and football;
men won’t.
Women are emotional and prone to flights of excess;
men are self-contained.
Women go to the toilet together in pubs;
men refrain.
Women write poetry straight from the heart;
men from the head.
Women like to recline on the grass in the sun;
men in bed.
Women write a thousand Christmas Cards
for men to post.
Women prepare turkey, gravy, bread sauce, stuffing, sprouts,
roast potatoes,
sausages wrapped in bacon, carrots and peas;
men make toast.
Women launch into long generalisations about men and women;
men say, ‘You’ll
come across exceptions.’
Which proves the rule.
Page(s) 97-98
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The