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 ...