There is that scene in the film Henry and June where Henry Miller reaches over to the radio blaring Hitler’s voice, and he snaps it off. He’s been having a beautiful moment with June, and they’re in love. Hitler’s not going away, and they can feel the presence of his very real, dark world-view closing in, but just the same they’re having their beautiful moment together inside the darkness. Eileen Myles is the living embodiment of this very kind of force that transmutes the aura of bondage into standing free, blatantly and beautifully free, from all the evil bastards of the world.

my need to say
that you can

That’s a quote from the brand new Myles poetry collection Snowflake/different streets from Wave Books. “[M]y need”—she says, and she’s not kidding—“to say / that you can.” Infectious, genius exuberance awaits! The poet Frank Sherlock recently showed me a list published in the International Business Times of the top five regrets people have on their deathbeds. Things like “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Eileen Myles is like a study in the emancipation of a life, for instance her reader’s life. Meaning YOU!

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