RICKEY’S POEM October 17, 2011: Rickey Laurentiis’s poem is one of the great ones. A poem that upon hearing aloud at a deliberately queer reading at AWP instantly became part of my vocabulary and I wanted to hear more and have and yet I keep helplessly returning to this one, called “Black Iris” with a dedication: “for Georgia O’Keefe.” I apologize, cornily, and I [...] by Eileen Myles

ARIANA’S POEM October 11, 2011: I think of poetry mostly as something that trails off a little bit. I think of poetry as something that doesn’t happen in the page at all, and not in the reading either, but a little bit in all of those places. But on the other hand there is this thing – the crappy little poem. I know that the cardinal sin of my generation is to say that [...] by Eileen Myles

EILEEN’S POEM May 1, 2011: Wrapping it up on the plane and even if I’m doubling up and Harriet can’t use this piece – is double dipping ok on the last day of poet’s month – I’m thinking about the recent poem of mine which is a book. Maybe it’ll become a poem too though. I lost a computer a couple of years ago – it is documented in the Harriet archive of [...] by Eileen Myles

ALAN’S POEM April 30, 2011: is very New York. There’s jokes about sandwiches growing lousy in the heat of a rotisserie and then of course the regimen of an endless social reality:   Every performance implies a spotlight, even if it means driving through the night to get there, mouth wired open in a grimace or grin…     These quotes [...] by Eileen Myles

bernadette’s poem April 29, 2011: I’m always protesting that I’m not a passionate Bernadette Mayer reader. I was handed a tan pamphlet somewhere – I only regret that Harriet does not have comments because they might read this and remind me who they were – but whoever handed me this stapled version of B. Mayer’s 1964 ceremony latin said it was the first thing she [...] by Eileen Myles

ABRASIVE MACHINING April 28, 2011: I’m reading a poem by Paul Foster Johnson called ABRASIVE MACHINING   It goes:   aided your thought process you self-styled outsiders sharpening sticks against your enemies. Some of us were driven into your arms. Off-kilter and feline, you worked under difficult conditions putting out stapled [...] by Eileen Myles

Anna’s poem April 27, 2011: Is three, or I guess four. I’m thinking of three people approaching a lake. The poems are more like movements than poems. I guess when I say movements I mean a kind of wash of meaning. But not solid like prose – as I like to say going from the west coast to the east coast of the page. Not broken up like poetry or like the prose part of [...] by Eileen Myles

Violi April 26, 2011: It’s been a year of many deaths and maybe all years are but the poetry world seems bent by loss right now. Leslie Scalapino this time last year. Akilah Oliver died last month. This month Paul Violi. I want to chime in on the surprising (because Paul seemed the most present therefore the most local of men in his radiant charm) accolades from [...] by Eileen Myles

POETS’ STRIKE April 21, 2011: I was at the gym a few days ago and I was mulling a piece of writing I was working on about an artist Oscar Tuazon. He’s a sculptor from the northwest who lives in Paris. His sculptures are kind of anti-buildings, often threatening to bring down the building they are designed to fit. His sculptures mock and attack the building in a way. As an [...] by Eileen Myles

Menopause Party April 18, 2011: I think of poems as made by doing as well as not doing as well as by who you do them around. I went to one of the most amazing readings a few weeks back and it was organized by Nathaniel Siegel and it was held at the gay community center in New York. I had been to this event before. It was in a little cubbyhole of the second floor of the center [...] by Eileen Myles