On Monday February 6th, the critically acclaimed New York poet Eileen Myles will host a talk in the JM Synge Theatre in the Arts Building of Trinity. Over the past three decades, Myles has produced over 20 volumes of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays and performance pieces, including her most popular collection of work entitled Not Me (1991).
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1949, Myles quickly found her passion for writing and moved to New York City in the early 1970s to pursue her dream career as a poet. It was here that Myles produced most of the body of her work, inspired by the many other New York-based writers such as Allen Ginsberg. Though Myles primarily identifies herself as a poet, she has also ventured into the realm of fiction. Most notably, her collection of stories Chelsea Girls (1994) describes life in 1980s Greenwich Village.
Myles has been commended for her engagement with the New Journalism movement and her nonfiction writing, particularly theatre and book reviews published in New York Native and Art in America magazines.
Beyond her writing career, Myles has become a notable figure in the queer art scene. In a review published by the New York Times last year, Emily Witt praises her work, stating: “The gritty, idealistic outsiders of New York’s creative scenes in the late 70’s – their era’s music, art and general sense of freedom – provided an antidote to the homogeneity of today’s pop culture, and few writers captured that romantic rawness quite like Myles.”
Regarded as a political feminist, Myles also ran as a write-in candidate in the 1992 US presidential election. She may not have been successful in her candidacy, but her political protest against George HW Bush’s comments that the greatest threat to free speech was the “politically correct” gained her more popularity.
Myles is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in non-fiction, an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, four Lambda Book Awards, the Shelley Prize, the Clark Prize for excellence in art writing and was named to the Slate/Whiting Second Novel List in 2015.
The event will be presented by Poetry Ireland in association with the School of English in Trinity on Monday the 6th of February. Tickets are free, but booking in advance is advised. It is sure to be a spectacular event and not one to be missed.
