Eileen Myles is coming to Stevenson University on September 29 at 5 pm to the Blackbox theater! Come and enjoy her free-spirited, deeply engaging poetry. For those of you who may not know who Eileen Myles is or why she is so amazing, here’s some background on her distinguished career.
Myles was born in Cambridge, MA, and graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston in 1971. She moved to New York City in 1974, and it was here that her literary career began. To date, she is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. At the University of California, San Diego, she served as head of the Writing Program for five years and founded the MFA program before retiring. Myles was the Hugo writer at the University of Montana in Missoula and a journalist and art writer with contributions to many publications. Two years ago, she became a Guggenheim fellow in non-fiction for her memoir about her dog, entitled Afterglow. She still resides in New York, where her journey as a poet began.
In addition to her literary career, Myles has also had an interesting history with politics and music. In 1992, she undertook write-in campaign for the United States Presidency, making her case to voters by traveling throughout the U.S. and giving her pitch on MTV as well. Pretty remarkable, isn’t it? But there’s more. Myles also toured all across North American and Europe in the early 1980s on and off with Sister Spit, a queer feminist post-punk troupe, and many of her poems have the insurgent energy and rebelliousness associated with punk.
I hope this gives you some sense of why Eileen Myles has been called “the rock star of modern poetry.” You can see and hear her read her work live September 29 at the Black Box Theater at 5 pm! Don’t miss out on this.
For the English Department blog, I’m Marc Kohlman. See you soon!