Eileen Myles - "Evolution"

“Myles relentlessly questions, analyzes, and even loathes the self, combining fanciful reveries with non sequitur in the New York School style . . . Effectively brings vague feelings into sharp relief with surprising imagery and lighter moments of mockery reveal the contradictions in human behavior . . . Myles has long excelled at capturing outsiderness, and feelings of being lost and misunderstood are plenty evident here.”—Publishers Weekly

Eileen Myles will read from and discuss their new collection of poems, Evolution. A Q&A and signing will follow the event.

At the Co-op

RSVP HERE (Please note that your RSVP is requested but not required.)

About the book: The first all-new collection of poems since 2011’s Snowflake/different streets—and following the critically acclaimed Afterglow (a dog memoir), as well as the volume of selected poems, I Must Be Living Twice—here, in Evolution, we find the eminent, exuberant writer at the forefront of American literature, upending genre in a new vernacular that enacts—like nobody else—the way we speak (inside and out) today. Evolution, with its channeling of Quakers, Fresca, and cell phones, radiates vital insight, purpose, and risk, like in these opening lines of the title poem:

Something
unearthly
about
today
so I buy
a Diet Coke &
a newspaper
a version of “me”
something
about me on the
earth & its sneakers
& feeling like
the earth’s furniture
but that can’t be
true or like
the coke & the Times
it’s true for a little
while.

About the author: Eileen Myles is the author of more than twenty books, including Evolution (poems), Afterglow (a dog memoir), Inferno (a poet’s novel), Chelsea Girls, and Cool For You. Myles’s many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, four Lambda Literary Awards, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, as well as grants from Creative Capital (nonfiction) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (poetry), and the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers grant.