“Instead of calling them beautiful there would be more warrant for describing women as
the unesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor for poetry, nor for the fine arts have they really
and truly any sense of susceptibility.”
—Essay on Women, Arthur Schopenhauer

See him sulking in the corner
with his failed theories,
posture rigid,
tie-less Oxford
buttoned to the neck.
Only men possess
the power of genius,
he once claimed;
the fair sex
are mere distractions,
vessels for reproduction.
Art can be made of woman,
but woman cannot make art.

Now, everywhere he looks—
female executives and entrepreneurs,
prime ministers and presidents,
astronauts, artists, scientists,
pioneers and visionaries.

Not one to burn a book,
even one now worthless,
he drops his leather-bound
Essay on Women
to use as a doorstop.
He has no desire
to hold a door open
for a woman.
Worse yet,
she for him.

Whenever possible, Bill Glose undertakes intriguing pursuits to write about, such as walking across Virginia and participating in a world-record-setting skinny dip. The author of five poetry collections, one book of fiction, and hundreds of magazine articles, Bill Glose was featured by NPR on The Writer’s Almanac in 2017 and won the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction in 2023. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Missouri Review, Rattle, Poet Lore, Narrative Magazine, and The Sun.