Eileen Myles



Eileen Myles (born 1949, Cambridge, Massachusetts) is an American poet who has also worked in fiction, non-fiction, and theater. She won a 2010 Shelley Memorial Award.

Early life and career
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Eileen Myles grew up and attended Catholic schools in Arlington, Massachusetts. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1971.

Arriving in New York in 1974, Myles gave her first reading at CBGB and attended workshops at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, studying alongside Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan, and Bill Zavatsky. She developed as a part of the poetry and queer art scene that developed in Manhattan's East Village. She worked as assistant to poet James Schuyler; met Allen Ginsberg at the Nuyorican Poets Café.

Her first performances and theater pieces (Joan of Arc: a spiritual entertainment, Patriarchy, a play, Feeling Blue Pts. 1, 2 7 3 and Modern Art and Our Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz) at the St. Mark's Poetry Project, P.S. 122 and The WOW Café. Myles has performed her work at colleges, performance spaces, and bookstores across North America as well as in, Iceland, Ireland and Russia. She lives in New York.

Myles's works include poetry, fiction, articles, plays and libretti, including: Hell (an opera with composer Michael Webster).

Professional life
In 1992 Myles conducted a female-led write-in campaign for President of the United States. In the 1980s she was Artistic Director of St. Mark's Poetry Project. In 1997 and again in 2007 Eileen toured with Sister Spit, a post-punk female performance troupe.

Myles is Professor Emerita of Writing and Literature, and taught at University of California, San Diego from 2002 to 2007. She continues to teach during summers at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and was the Hugo Writer at University of Montana for the spring of 2010. She contributes to several publications, recently including Parkett, aNother Magazine, the Believer, H.O.W journal and Provincetown Arts. During summer 2009 she contributed regularly to the Poetry Foundation's "Harriet" blog.

"The Importance of Being Iceland"
The Importance of Being Iceland, published by Semiotext(e) / the MIT Press in July 2009, is the first full volume of Myles's essays and art writing. It compiles a number of Myles's works, including the title essay's account of trips to Reykjavik in 1996 and 2007 to explore Icelandic poetry, art and queer identity in a global context. The volume also includes a series of conversations and essays about artists, including Daniel Day-Lewis, Wakefield Poole, Ntozake Shange and Robert Smithson.

Critical reception
Bust Magazine has called Myles "the rock star of modern poetry", and Holland Cotter in The New York Times described her as "a cult figure to a generation of post-punk female writer-performers." Of her poetry book Sorry, Tree, the Chicago Review wrote: "Her politics are overt, her physicality raw, yet it is the subtle gentle noticing in her poems that overwhelms."

Recognition
In 2010, her novel Inferno won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction.

In popular culture
She is mentioned in the lyrics of the Le Tigre song Hot Topic.

Publications

 * The Irony of the Leash. Jim Brodey Books, 1978.
 * Polar Ode (with Anne Waldman). New York: Dead Duke Books, 1979.
 * A Fresh Young Voice from the Plains. New York: Power Mad Press, 1981. ASIN B0013BI3CM
 * Sappho's Boat. Los Angeles: Little Caesar, 1982. ASIN B000KW4H9I
 * Bread and Water (stories). New York: Hanuman Books, 1986. ISBN 978-0937815021
 * 1969 (fiction). New York: Hanuman Books, 1989. ISBN 978-0937815250
 * Not Me. New York: Semiotext(e), 1991. ISBN 9780936756677
 * Chelsea Girls (fiction). ISBN 0876859325 Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1994.
 * The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading (co-edited with Liz Kotz). ISBN 1570270570 New York: Semiotext(e), MIT Press, 1995.
 * School of Fish, ISBN 157423031X Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1997.
 * Cool for You (novel). ISBN 188712859X New York: Soft Skull Press, 2000.
 * On My Way, ISBN 0971037132 Cambridge, MA: Faux Press, 2001.
 * Tow (with drawings by artist Larry C. Collins), New York: Lospeccio Press, 2005.
 * Sorry, Tree (poems). ISBN 978-1933517209 2007, Wave Books.
 * The Importance of Being Iceland (art writing). ISBN 978-1584350668 New York: Semiotext(e), MIT Press, 2009.
 * Snowflake (new poems) and different streets (newer poems) (forthcoming from Wave Books, 2012)
 * The Importance of Being Iceland (art writing). ISBN 978-1584350668 New York: Semiotext(e), MIT Press, 2009.
 * Snowflake (new poems) and different streets (newer poems) (forthcoming from Wave Books, 2012)
 * Snowflake (new poems) and different streets (newer poems) (forthcoming from Wave Books, 2012)