Sorry, Tree

“One of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature—honest, jokey, paranoid, sentimental, mean, lyrical, tough, you name it.”—Dennis Cooper

Eileen Myles has written thousands of poems since she gave her first reading at CBGB in 1974. BUST magazine calls her “the rock star of modern poetry” and The New York Times says she’s “a cult figure to a generation of post-punk females forming their own literary avant garde.”

Myles’ trademark punk-lesbian sensibility and intimate knowledge of poetic tradition are at work in this eighth collection, where every love poem is political, and every political poem is, ultimately, about love.

From “Home”:

I thought if

I inventoried home it would be broad

my eyes fling open

like a doll’s

to the virtual space that suddenly

resembles the walls

the most interesting artists are large;

monsters

while the people we know are

masses of flowers

& when I turn

on my cellphone I see

everyone

Eileen Myles has published over a dozen books of poetry, prose, and plays. Formerly the director of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, as well as a write-in candidate for president in 1992, in 1997 Myles toured with Sister Spit’s Ramblin’ Road Show. Her books include Snowflake/different streets, Inferno, The Importance of Being Iceland, Skies, Maxfield Parrish, Not Me, and Chelsea Girls (stories).