Green Apple Books and beatrice.com have pointed out a glaring omission, from a somewhat unexpected source. I say unexpected because I sometimes point out these omissions, of folks like women, people of color, and queer people, and attribute them to the dominance of the publishing industry by straight white men. In this case, however, the omission comes from none other than one of the most powerful women of color in the world, Oprah Winfrey.

Apparently Oprah’s Book Club hasn’t selected a book by a female author since 2004, and none by a living woman since 2002. With all of the great books out there by female authors (Green Apple begins a list here), what could be the reason for this pattern? I hesitate to call Oprah a “misogynist.” Have women writers simply been overlooked?

Personally, I’m tired of being overlooked. Of all the times when these omissions occur, and because we can find no overtly malicious intent, we steer away from conversations including words like “sexism” and say “oh, they just didn’t think about it…” Why is it so easy to forget? To envision a world in which certain types of people simply don’t exist?

Maybe I’m focusing on all the wrong things. I can complain until my last breath about arenas like the publishing industry and best-of lists, dominated for centuries by people who often have a particular ideal for literature in mind. But when I interviewed poet Camille Dungy, for example, she couldn’t have cared less about what happens to her poems in publishing, as long as she is free to write. When I think about it I can definitely say the same for myself, so why am I so worried about what someone like Oprah has to say?

Well, I guess in Oprah’s case, I am disappointed partly because of her position as such a powerful woman. My secret hope, I didn’t realize until now, is that she would be the exception to the rule, someone in the position to do what others haven’t, to recognize the history of silencing folks like women writers and to help reconcile that by recognizing them now. Oprah’s Book Club is popular and mainstream and it’s helping keep the love of literature alive, so I hope it doesn’t simply enliven history’s emphasis on some voices over others.

Then again, maybe I should stop focusing so much on mainstream circles’ treatment of literature and just focus on writing, writing for me and for the folks who matter to me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the recent happenings of the San Francisco lit scene, it’s that you don’t have to wait for some main stage to offer you a spotlight to share your work. You make your own way to the stage, or you create your own stage, or you challenge what we all know of what a stage is and who can stand on it. And, someday, you will be heard.

Do you hear us, Oprah? Maybe someday you will. Then again, maybe you’re not the one who’s meant to hear.

I thought it was appropriate that the sky was raining ruthlessly the day I interviewed poet Camille T. Dungy. I was heading to a café in the Mission to meet with the woman who edited the first collection of nature poetry by black writers, and by the time I got there, nature was on my mind, in my shoes and dripping from my clothes. It felt only right to find myself sitting with Dungy and her six-month-old daughter, two black poets coming in from the rain to discuss, among other things, black nature poetry.  

Having her take the time to sit down with me was a big honor. Camille T. Dungy authored the poetry collections What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Red Hen Press, 2006) and Suck on the Marrow (Red Hen Press, 2010), edited Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (UGA, 2009), and co-edited From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great (Persea, 2009). Dungy has received fellowships from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, The Virginia Commission for the Arts, Cave Canem, the American Antiquarian Society and Bread Loaf. She is associate professor of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University.


When did you begin writing? And is that separate from when you decided to pursue a career of writing and teaching poetry? 

Yes, I’ve been writing my whole life. So I couldn’t tell you when I began. I made a conscious decision during college that I was going to become an English Major with a Creative Writing focus. And then I made a conscious decision at one point to do an MFA instead of a Ph.D., so there were several times along the way when I made decisions about focusing more deeply on it, but the writing has been there all along.  It’s just the decisions and opportunities to make it professional that keep confronting me.            ...