Eileen Myles

Out of the Blue

I’m thinking about Can Xue, this Chinese fiction writer who spoke at the 92^nd Street Y in April. I went, I was such a groupie. She grew up during the Cultural Revolution in an intellectual family who were forced to do hard, physical labor. In general it was a pretty harsh time. Those of us who are turning 60 this year are exactly as old as the Cultural Revolution. There’s a

09.01.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Eileen Myles

Brazil

The only thing interfering with the timelessness of summer is the heat. I spent the summer of 1975 in New York having a really hard time making a living mainly putting up gallery posters in the windows of stores for three dollars and hour. Some waitressing which I was really bad at. Happily there was beer. I remember a friend coming over and saying you don’t even have a fan when I remarked on how hopeless everything was. Oh you’re right. Someone gave me a fan I think. I don’t ever remember buying one except for a really cool looking deco one at an auction upstate which only died last summer on Cape

08.30.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1)

Eileen Myles

AFTER THE READING

I’m going to read at Bluestockings in about forty minutes and I haven’t figured out what to wear yet but I do know what I’m reading. I’m expecting there’ll be a nice audience and I have friends coming, and my girlfriend, and I’m looking forward to it which I usually do cause I love reading. It seems like the most athletic part of our sport. The

08.27.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Eileen Myles

The Group

 We’re turning the corner into fall and it seems to me 2009 was a fast summer. I sprained my ankle hiking with one group at the beginning of it and as the chill infiltrates the air as many mornings as not when I wake up it’s still x@#$$% swollen. I lived at MacDowell for a month this summer with a strangely shifting group. There were people I met at the end of their stay – and others began to arrive in the last week I was

08.19.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Eileen Myles

Hand and Sensitivity

I don’t mind dwelling on the contest so much. I thought I’d knock it out last night – the choice, the final reading and then I found that the four I had narrowed it down to I in fact didn’t like. If a contest is for a book, an entire manuscript, it puts a particular burden on choosing. It re-inscribes how we read a book as opposed to a poem. My mind goes back to a review I was reading last night of a new film by the Dardenne brothers and it was saying that they were moral filmmakers, ethical even. My heart cheers

08.03.09 PERMALINK | NO COMMENTS

Eileen Myles

Chickens Without Media

Chickens without media come running. I am kneeling at the edge of their electronic fence with three crumpled index cards because unlike say DH Lawrence who wrote good animal poems, I have no memory. Not much. What would I have of your fat fullness without recording. One goes back into the chicken house then two. One tries another angle, getting close to me. A truck rides by laughing. Look at

07.31.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Eileen Myles

The Chickens Speak

Here at last, live, the chickens get to do their own bidding, despite the human voice trying to introduce them, to rile them up, to get the chickens to give a good show.

07.30.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (8)

Eileen Myles

chicken research

Peterborough NH, July 28 2009

Would you be available for a possible conversation?

Researcher needs to shift to an animal platform where other sound systems have value and can be received. Transition successful:

07.29.09 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (6)