Does the Male Muse exist?

Tomorrow morning, Tuesday 10th July, from 11.30am - 12.00 noon, you can catch My Male Muse on Radio 4. In this potentially controversial programme, "poet Clare Pollard dispels the popular female image of a muse. She argues that men can also be a source of beauty and inspiration, and contradicts poet Robert Graves, who famously claimed that the male muse doesn't exist."

The programme is produced by Clare Pollard and Tamysn Challenger. Other poets taking part will be Eva Salzman, Catherine Smith, Annie Freud, Melanie Challenger and Penelope Shuttle.

And as if the excitement of finding so many women poets on Radio 4 at once wasn't enough for one week, you can also listen to Fiona Sampson, poet and editor of Poetry Review, on Woman's Hour, Thursday July 12th between 10am and 10.45.

On that programme, Fiona will be reading from her brand-new poetry collection, just out from Carcanet, entitled Common Prayer. The programme will also feature discussions on the dreadful problem of endometriosis and 'how to moan without losing friends and alienating people'.

It could be worth my while to listen just for that last piece alone ...

Women Poets, Non-Women Poets

Seeing today that I had a post label for women poets, but none for 'men poets', I went to create one for the Jacob Polley post only to realise that we don't tend to say 'men poets' in Britain. We say 'male poets', if we mention their gender at all. Dear little genderless things. Non-women poets.

Googling for some advice on this, I found an article by Clare Pollard, 'The Female Poet & the Male Muse', which appears on the Magma poetry website. It doesn't really address the issue of men/male poets but does at least make amusing reading on a grey Saturday morning.

I'm going to go with 'male poets', though I am sorely tempted to use 'non-women', if only to point up the ridiculousness of the fact that we have such a frequently used label for women who write poetry, but none for men. Because 'male poet' is the default, of course. Like male Prime Minister. Male passenger jet pilot. Male snooker player.

Okay, waiting for the fallout ...