NYU’s creative writing program is one of the most distinguished in the country. Professors ranging from bestseller Jonathan Safran Foer to 2013
“Dottie” Lasky, Eileen Myles, Rachel Zucker…#weird and #amazing.
Wave’s Cold Pack Sale! Through February 2nd (Groundhog day!), get Eileen Myles’ latest tête-à-tête collection, Snowflake/different streets, Into the Snow, a translation of Gennady Aygi’s delicate and avant-garde poetry, and Winter Sex by Katy Lederer, who “fills the air with a new voice that is bodily, oracular and lyrical” (D.A. Powell).
Eileen Myles reading with a puppet. “After life is a dubious conjecture. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
“I love that Eileen Myles will never say that she is not a lesbian writer. I love that Eileen Myles will never say that she just happens to be a lesbian — as though sexuality were only another shared existential accident, like we’ll run into each other in the airport in Denver because both of us just happen to be queer. I love that Eileen Myles will never say that in order to be a great artist she just needs to transcend her sexuality and gender. And yet I love that Eileen Myles has said in an interview with Ed Foster that, ‘You can’t live in a lesbian or a gay world exclusively, I wouldn’t want to and finally I think it would be unsafe if you could. The strength of a culture relies on its interrelations.’”
Interview with Eileen Myles. And HERE is a link to the transcription.
“When I do the reading, there are the poems, but also I can’t stop myself even though it alienates certain parts of the poetry world, I have to tell stories about the poems. I want people to know how that happened or what this thing is an emblem of. Weirdly its what makes the whole thing be alive for me. It’s taken me years to admit. There was a time when I was trying to be a performer, like in the 80s when poetry was not considered cool, performance was cool. I started memorizing my texts and trying to be a performer. In the writing the world, it meant you weren’t a real writer, you were a “spoken word artist.” There was a class issue suddenly. Slowly over time I’ve realized I hear this work. I am performer, that’s what I do for a living and that’s how I make my living.”
Now you can watch Eileen Myles reading for the Free Pussy Riot NYC Reading, along with Chloe Sevigny, Karen Finley, Johanna Fateman, and MX Justin Vivian Bond.
And lucky you! Oubliette is on sale for $10 on our website, just today.
Video of Eileen Myles reading and being interviewed in Iceland.
Eileen Myles’ poetry hike for the Machine Project.
