'The woman turning, that’s the revolution. The room is gigantic, the woman is here.' -- Eileen Myles
'Zingingly funny and melancholy, Inferno follows a young girl from Boston in her descent into the maelstrom of New York Bohemia, circa 1968. Myles beautifully chronicles a lost Eden: ‘The place I found was carved out from sadness and sex and to write a poem there you merely needed to gather.’' -- John Ashbery
'Eileen Myles debates her own self identity in a gruffly beautiful, sure voice of reason. Is she a ‘hunk’? A ‘dyke’? A ‘female’? I’ll tell you what she is––damn smart! Inferno burns with humor, lust and a healthy dose of neurotic happiness.' -- John Waters
'What is a poem worth? Not much in America. What is a life worth? Inferno isn’t another ‘life of the poet,’ it’s a fugue state where life and poem are one: shameful and glorious. People sometimes say, ‘I came from nothing,’ but that’s not quite right. Myles shows us a ‘place’ a poet might come from, did come from––working class, Catholic, female, queer. This narrative journey somehow takes place in a moment, every moment, the impossible present moment of poetry.' –- Rae Armantrout
Media
EM reads from 'Inferno'
from EM's 'Neo-Benshi' performance
'April 5th'
Lecture
Reading in Paris (partial), 2009
Interview
from The Rumpus
The Rumpus: Can you speak about what makes something poetry to you?
Myles: It’s an action, an arrangement. Remember, not everyone wants to be a poet. I think it starts in part with claiming that identity and then expanding the definition (or shrinking it) in relation to the historic form. If I take a photograph is it a poem? How about a play? I think of a poem as an important formula – how one learns to see. If you translate a poem you quickly understand that within that person’s poem THESE senses are amended like this, and THESE ones barely come into play. I think a poem is an endlessly transferrable vision. A signature of sorts.
Rumpus: As a writer who’s mostly concentrated on poetry, is it difficult for you to make the transition to fiction and nonfiction? What is that process like for you? Does writing in each genre feel different to you?
Myles: Well, sure, it took time. I had to wait for fiction writers who showed me the way. Violette LeDuc and Robert Walser, for example. I think you have a desire but don’t know how to realize it and some writers will do the work of opening the door for you. I don’t mean imitation, but possibility. Nonfiction was more economic for me and also related to high school, where essays were what we were invited to do and I enjoyed writing something funny so I could make people laugh when I stood up to read mine. So I could be asked by my fellow students to read mine aloud. All the genres feel related but you do each for a different purpose.
Rumpus: I saw on your website that your have a novel, The Inferno, coming out soon. Will you tell us a bit about it?
Myles: Yes, it’s a joke in a way, and a continuation on my other fictions, Chelsea Girls and Cool for You. Chelsea Girls is like a series of short autobiographical films, Cool for You is an examination of what it’s like to be female inside various institutions. One of them was the institution of “writing” and it was the one narrative my friends said, ugh, take that out. I didn’t get it right. When my agent shows my novels to editors they go, but who is she?!
Like if I had fallen down a well as a little child my story would be interesting now. So I thought, ha-ha, I’ll write a novel about being a poet and when they say who is she, the answer will be – she’s the poet Eileen Myles. But oddly they all seem to know me now. They go yay, Eileen Myles. No, sorry, not this book. But I do have a wonderful publisher and I’m about to sign a contract. I think it’ll be out in the fall.
(the entirety)
Elsewhere
Buy 'Inferno (a poet's novel)'
Elieen Myles Official Website
Eileen Myles Fan Site
Eileen Myles' books
Eileen Myles on Gram Parsons @ The New Yorker
Eileen Myles interviewed @ 3:AM Magazine
'Barf Desire'
Eileen Myles interviews Daniel Day Lewis
Audio: Eileen Myles on NPR's Bookworm
Audio: Eileen Myles' readings @ PennSound
The book
'Coming of age in New York in the 70s is a raunchy spectacle. It's the New York of Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol and Kathy Acker. It's also the New York of a million kids who came anonymously onto the scene and stayed that way. This story peeks in and out from the margins, never becoming memoir but always a vivid poem written in clear rich prose -- very often about fame and desire but told from a quiet place where the equivalent of drops of water from an icicle hanging from an East Village firescape can be listened to for hours as the young poet's story unravels from a variety of literary and sexual positions.
'Eileen Myles follows Dante's epic in one distinct way. The first section of the Inferno describes the entry of the poet girl into the outer rings of New York and here the question is whether she is telling her body or her poem.
'“Heaven”, the novel's midsection tells the reader how to write a poem while pulling a bait and switch and telling us how to become a lesbian as well. Myles exposition of “lesbianity” includes six pages of female genitalia that rival anything Henry Miller ever produced -- though the inspiration for the section is the efforts of generations of feminist photographers as well as the 8th book of the Aeneid in which Virgil describes the stories behind the all drawings on the hero's shield. Heaven is about sex remembered - in a poem.
'The third and final part of the book -- “Drops” - is a fictional proposal to a funding organization called The Ferdinand Foundation in which the author obliges the foundation's request to supply them with her career narrative, but gives her “real one” the one that a writer never gives to funders. Travel disasters, bad readings of wonderful poems, tour stories and deaths - “Drops” is Myles' Purgatorio which litanizes the actual career of the poet and leaves us in that present of the writing and the life.' -- Soft Skull
Trailer
Excerpt
My English professor’s ass was so beautiful. It was perfect and full as she stood at the board writing some important word. Reality or perhaps illusion. She opened the door. With each movement of her arms and her hand delicately but forcefully inscribing the letters intended for our eyes her ass shook ever so slightly. I had never learned from a woman with a body before. Something slow, horrible and glowing was happening inside me. I stood on the foothills to heaven. She opened the door.
There were a bunch of us in Eva Nelson’s world literature class who had gone to catholic school. Nobody was that different, 18 year old kids who had grown up going to the Blessing of the Fleet, hooting and drinking beer, who went to Sacred Heart, who played against Our Lady. Hardly anyone in the class was really that different. Everyone it seemed to me lived in a roughly catholic world. But those of us who knew nothing else—we were especially visible. When we had a thought, an exciting thought we’d go: Sst. Sst. Like a batch of little snakes. We meant “Sister.” Sister, pay attention to me. Call me now.
Eva Nelson had been teaching Pirandello. What we really are considering here: and now she faced us with her wonderful breasts. I know that a woman when she is teaching school begins to acquire a wardrobe that is slightly different from her daily self. How she exposes herself to the world. For instance later in the semester I went to a party at her house in Cambridge and she sat on her couch in her husband’s shirt. He was a handsome and distant young man named Gary, he was the Nelson and she wore his shirt and you really couldn’t see her breasts at all but she had a collection of little jerseys, tan and peach, pale gold and one was really white I think. Generally she dressed in sun tones--nothing cool, nothing blue. Nothing like the airy parts of the sky, but the hot and distant tones of the sun and her breasts were in front of me, I was looking at her face and I knew I was alive.
On television in my favorite shows I already begun to see how things could be slightly different--or utterly different like a man could flip his daily quarter towards a newsstand and it would land just cause it jounced against all the other shiny coins and it landed on its edge. And all that day the man could hear the thoughts of people in the street, his wife and his secretary, even his dog. It was crazy and the next morning he threw his coin again. Hey said the regular Joe who sold him the paper every day. Some guy did that yesterday and I’ve been—hey you’re that guy. The two guys faces really human faces got big and the music you never noticed till now, the music stopped playing. Hey you’re that guy. Yeah it’s me.
There was something really covered about childhood. I think it was the nuns. With their pint of ice cream hats with the black thick flowing cloth that grazed the surface of the schoolyard and the oiled wood floors of my school, the nuns enclosed the world with sanity and god. The rules flowed up and down the calendar and around the clock and in the day the sky, the world was rules--known by god the nuns said.
Eva Nelson had fantastic breasts that jounced in her explanation of modernity, of no way out, of vagueness, of the burden of insecurity and the possibility of something else—that this could be a dream, all of it. If the flip of a coin could release a torrent of multi vocal glee—well maybe it was a dream. We didn’t know, we couldn’t, this was our condition.
The next book we will read she said, pulling the shade on existentialism for the moment, is a much older text. It’s part of the tradition, but is a very modern book, quite political. She had this cute glint when she was being smart which was always. She wasn’t big smart, she didn’t clobber you with words. She just kind of befriended us like wolves but she believed that wolves were good and could be taught too. But she was from New York, was Jewish and had been born intelligent. She was blonde. Are Jews blonde. I didn’t know. I would learn so much more. Sometimes her jersey was nearly green but that was as dark as it got.
Dante really had no other way to talk about his time except in a poem. The Inferno is a heavily coded poem. It’s not about censorship but something else. It was an age of not even satire but allegory. His beliefs were fixed in the structure of his poem like the windows of a church. Her eyes twinkled. Oh my god.
And I’ll give you a clue. She paused while she spoke so that each phrase could catch up in our thought. It wasn’t like she thought we were dumb. I could feel her eyes meeting mine. You’re not dumb Eileen. She knew me. And this was the best moment of all. Before any of the incidents that would change my life irrevocably I felt she already knew me. I sat in her class on Columbus Ave. in the Salada Tea Building in Boston on a Tuesday afternoon and I was seen-- before words before anything. She would pause and let the words catch up. We had time.
I want each of you to write an Inferno. The class groaned. It’s just his time. This is yours. She smiled.
It was ours now. I would show her my hell.
(more)
Another excerpt @ Vertebrae
Eileen Myles in the late '70s
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*
p.s. Hey. A few things. First, on this upcoming weekend, the blog will be hosting the eighth of its ongoing if sporadic writers workshops. In this case, the writer whose work will be asking for your helpful feedback and criticism is Nick Brook aka d.l. 'Stoopid Slapped Puppies' aka (formerly) Put The Lotion In The Basket. Also, the workshop session will start not on the usual Saturday but rather beginning with Friday's post. It will then extend through the weekend. Nick's piece is longer than the usual submission, and it's also quite formally complex, so I'll post its first half on Friday and the rest of it on Saturday in the hopes of giving you a good amount of time to read and consider the piece prior to posting your response, critique, thoughts, or what have you. Secondly, the trailer for the upcoming Christophe Honore film 'Homme au Bain' in which I play a small role is now out and about. I'm in the trailer for second, and, if by some chance, you want to watch it, it's here. Thirdly, ... hm, okay, maybe there were only two things to tell you. ** Emily, He not only likes cats and parks, he named himself after them and only them. I guess he's looking for an animal- and nature-hating master? I'm okay, Emily. Oh, well, yeah, that seems like a good move to ease back on the drinking. Why not? So, how's it going so far? I can try to be your unofficial AA sponsor if you like but definitely without the higher power stuff. ** David Ehrenstein, I know that Arzner house. It's quite close to my LA pad. I'd spring for it. If it's still on the market when I get paid my millions to play Gandalf in the 'Hobbit' movies, I'll spring for it. Thanks for linking to the Honore trailer. Trippy. Keep your fingers crossed that it wins big at the Locarno Film Festival this week. ** Pilgarlic, How strange that Driveby Truckers would come all the way over here and not play in Paris. Unfortunately, Toulouse and Rennes are both a bit too far away. I've never seen them live. I like their records, but everyone says their albums are not even the half of it. * Killer Luka, I did eat it, and it was fucking delicious. (more below) ** Bill, You've got me on the eye thing. Its ? is what got him the gig. Glad you liked the Peyre too. I sent Gisele off to see it last night. I'll be curious to hear what she thought. She can be a very tough crowd. Michael's feeling a little better, but it's gradual. ** Changeling, Eat it?! Oh, like medicine, so I can pinch my nose. I suppose I've eaten worse. Spinecho identified 'him'self as a boy in the profile, but I wondered too. A boy, I think, push comes to shove. Oh, apologies for my continuing slowness. It won't be long. I'm almost awake now. ** JoeM, Ha ha, you're not going to believe me, but, honestly, when I came across Bullseye's slave profile, I thought, oh, let's throw him in for Joe. Of course his text won him the spot too. If people here think my slave batches are fairly attractive, they should see the hotties I have to leave behind because their ads are just the millionth variation on the sentence 'Total bottom here, up for anything'. I love 'Hey Bulldog'. The others to which you linked too. And 'No Reply', my pick for one of the most underrated Beatles' tunes. ** Oscar B, What's the haps, babe? I still can't quite see the joke in that creepy guy's email, but being spooked might just be the more interesting option. Your sister gets here today, right? Do I get to meet her? ** Misanthrope, Well, that's what I heard. I mean how black magic stuff only gets to its believers, not that I believe in such things either, I guess. Today your mom gets back on the doctor and diagnosis and treatment track, right? Any news? ** Mark Gluth, Howdy, Mark! Cracked ribs, ouch, been there, ugh. My novel's been giving me a dickens of a time, but I might be wresting control of it and its pace now, I hope. Unlearn everything? Any chance you could explain that a little bit more? I'm very intrigued. VK! ** Syreearmwellion , Hey, man. Glad to see you. Wow, a bunch of new work on your blog. I fell behind in my malaise. Looks super interesting at a glance, and I'll pore over it later. Everyone, the writer and d.l. and recent guest host syreearmwellion has some new writings and things up on his blog, and I urge you to join me in devouring them by going here. Awesome open mic story. Someone should write a novel that takes place during an open mic reading. I think the form would be really cool, and talk about your opportunities for tragedy, triumph, madcap moments, and so on. ** Im not an asbo im your next Prime minister aka Tom, Yeah, it's the rimming that seems to trouble the mum contingent of my readership the most. Dads to a lesser extent. Anyway, sorry that my tome triggered domestic squabbles even though that is its highest goal. That's not true. Why did I say that. The p.s. is a weird form. Great to see you, man. What else is going on with you? ** Steevee, Very glad to hear your bite is literally rosier now. Mine hasn't changed one iota, weirdly. ** Ken Baumann, Hey, Ken! Since I'm so dead set on using my impending critical acclaim as an actor to land the role of Gandalf in the 'Hobbit' movies, maybe you could play Saruman, if he's even in 'The Hobbit'. I guess I should read that sucker. Or I'm sure they'll do another 'Karate Kid' movie now. We can flip a coin to decide who gets to be the new Jackie Chan. Is 'The Room' based on the Selby novel? ** Trees, Hey, man. I'd guess the site either just checks the official age slot or sees its legal obligations as ending with that check. 'Punk new narrative', wow! It had to happen. So are you guys getting the pretentious prog elements of Kevin's and Dodie's and Bob's and my stuff out of your newer narratives. I want to see that issue, definitely. ** Jeff, Yeah, some of those slaves are, uh, dead serious. Cool, thanks for kissing my possible spell away. There has been a little voice in the back of my head worrying just a little bit about a curse. I ordered the IRM album on Saturday. I couldn't find a quick download. Anyway, it's en route. A good slave knows it's the master who decides all the whys, or so I gather. Theirs is not to reason why, ... etc. Thanks, J. ** Chris, It's true that Sonic Youth doesn't get much better than 'Shadow of a Doubt'. Nice day you had there. How did you do all of that and also swim in the ocean? Isn't the ocean almost forever away from Brooklyn? ** Math, Buddy. You're in your new place now 'cos it's August 2nd over here, and so New York's August 1st must be on its way to dying out in LA by now. You setting stuff up as we speak? Posters on the wall? Fresh flowers? Nuts in the nut bowl? Excellent on the 3rd Apple interview. What a smooth cookie that interviewer sounds to have been. Hopefully, you'll be a smooth cookie later this week. Smoother, I mean. Let us know what happens, okay? Promise. And finally, hubba hubba on the sex. ** 張v李佳羽嘉旺, Go 愛情是盲目的 但婚姻恢復了它的視力 yourself, why don't you? ** JW Veldhoen, Your day was even bigger and harder to cram together into a 24 hour period in my head than Chris' day was, and he had the ocean going on in his. I'll find Kate Adler on FB. She sounds very cool. Gracias. ** Wolf, Hey, W. Thanks, pal. I'm going to go try to score some of that stuff after I take my shower 'cos my bite/bump is acting like it think it's a fucking Egyptian pyramid or something. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Thank you, sir. Every time my slave posts are received in the manner in which they are intended, the face of someone out there in the world is sat upon by Vincent Kartheiser and the painted ponies go up and down. Your days sounds like it panned out quite nicely all in all. Yes, 'Being There', yes. Hope the birthdayed one repaid your gift in jollies. ** Dogboy, Yeah, man, if something stresses out your writing, forget it. Faith is pretty key, yeah, but that faith can arise from the weirdest, most previously unexplored places. Strangest thing. Oh, if you ever want to get some feedback by putting something of yours in this blog's occasional writers workshop post thing, please do. I go through phases of not giving a shit about sex all the time, so, yeah, it's possible. And I come across ads all the time where slaves announce themselves as recovering masters, so yeah on that issue too. Your writing's importance is faith in action. Importance deserves faith and tends to drag it along with it. Surrender, basically. ** John, But the real question is whether you're a flash in his fate's, uh, pan. ** Killer Luka, Oh, gosh, thanks a lot about 'Closer'. That old thing? Well, that poor kitten has come back to haunt you, obviously. Yikes. Awesome. Yikes. ** Sypha, Your dream wasn't too shabby either. How do you guys remember your dreams so vividly? I'm lucky if mine are smears in the morning. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, Ben. My itching hasn't abated. Strangest fucking thing. That AGK promo is pretty awesome, even sans you. Everyone, here is _Black_Arylic, so may I have you attention please? And I quote ... 'Yesterday the Yuck 'n Yum team recorded a rather cool AGK promo in my Leeds-weddings-enforced absence, and here it is: LINK I regret my not being in it, they all look very Apprentice-worthy, and the speed it was done puts so-called professional TV shows to shame.' ** Will Decker, Happy to hear Mike14 triggered off such a rich memory. If only he knew, that is if he doesn't know. Who knows who reads this thing? Well, clearly, I need to get on the horse of reading Rorem's journals. I'll see if any of them have made their way over here. Thanks, Will. ** Colin, Thank you re: the slave contingent, man. I'm glad katpark made his mark. I thought he was a keeper too. And, yeah, thank you for being into the poems I selected. I mean, gosh, how couldn't one be, to my mind? Such a pile of greatness. Well, if you have a copy of 'Gutter' to spare, that'll be really kind of you. Or I can spring for the subscription. Or maybe even find it in this quite, quite good English language bookstore here that stocks 90% poetry books and journals called Red Wheelbarrow. Amazing place, if you ever get yourself over here. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Well, that rude late night caller has called me four additional times now, morning, noon, and night. I ain't picking up, though. If you remember when I mentioned that someone kept calling and calling me from an unknown number and never leaving a voice mail, I think it could be one and the same. You see hitchhikers here once in a while, but this is France where like 1/8 of 1 percent of the population owns a gun. There's another 'Twilight' book?! I thought ... oh, no matter. On your question, that's a good but hard question. Speaking as an artist, I guess I'd say the best judge would be maybe two-thirds the artist and one-third the rest of the world. In other words, I'm not sure it's possible to judge until others have seen what you've made and had their say too. Your aunt's mother is really scary to picture, but her working at a Waffle House takes the edge off bit. God knows Waffle Houses have standards. A lot of my US friends' Sunday night ritual is getting together to watch a 'True Blood' and 'Madmen' combo. Have you tried that? My weekend: On Saturday, I worked on my novel for a while. That's going slightly better. Since everything closes here on Sunday, I had to go buy food for the weekend. I always shop at Monop, which is sort of the French 7-11 but a lot better, and at Naturalia, the health food store. There's this boy who works at the local Monop that I have a vague crush-ette on the way one can get crush-ettes on attractive employees of stores one always shops at, and, anyway, he hadn't been there for a couple of weeks, and I thought he'd quit or something, but there he was on Saturday working the cash register again, and when I gave him my purchases, he smiled at me and said (in French) 'Where have you been?' (I should mention that he'd never seemed to even notice me before.) I said (in English), 'Here. Where have you been?' He said (in English), 'Here. I guess we have been unlucky'. So, that was nice-ette. In the afternoon, I had coffee with Leora Lev, the writer and academic who people here might know by name because she edited that book of essays on my work called 'Enter at Your Own Risk'. She's here teaching and finishing her upcoming book, which is about the films of Almodovar. Anyway, we chatted and visited, and it was great. In the evening, I must have done something but not much apparently since I don't remember what. On Sunday, I mostly worked on my novel all day like I tend to do on my one day off from the blog. I had a coffee with Kiddiepunk up the street, and that was most pleasant. I made plans to meet up with Gisele today and work on that book/CD project 'Jerk / Through Their Tears' that we have to finish by next month. I found and watched that Christophe Honore film trailer I mentioned up top, and that was cool. Blah blah. I watched a good documentary about Sergio Leone on Arte. I tried not to itch my hand with occasional success. Etc. Slept, the usual. How about your Monday then? ** Paradigm, Hi, Scott. Sounds like your election stuff is a lot like the American midterm elections stuff, except, hopefully in your case, without our insane, racist, very noisy far right wing fringe element, and, in our case, without your positive note re: The Greens. The Indigenous Festival sounds like it'll be amazing. If you don't mind, alert us when your writings about it are launched online because I'd love to read them. Safe trip there, if you haven't left yet, and take good care, man. ** Bollo, Hey. I found the gallery's link, found the gallery's site, and saw some very nice installation shots of the show. Amazing how clean and inviting it looks given the salon style hanging. Very cool. Everyone, Bollo aka the wonderful visual artist Jonathan Mayhew has work in a group show called 'something tells me it's all happening at the zoo', and the show can be glimpsed via some pretty pictures here, and how's about you guys go have a look? Still haven't seen 'Inglorious Bastards', which is totally weird. Hope your week is dawning accommodatingly. ** Bye. Oh, Eileen Myles is super great, and she has a new novel, and that's great news, and I thought I'd spread the greatness today, and so I have. Bye.
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