Myles compares writing poetry to a kind of coasting – like surfing or bicycle riding: “You get on something, you can feel the movement and you try to keep squeaking it out without stopping it or forcing it to continue when it’s done.” Going to do a reading, Myles picks the poem that “feels somewhat like today. So you can really enter it in some way that feels fresh.” Over the years, Myles feels they have developed more courage in performance, relying on the ability to hear the rhythm, the music, in the poem and trusting the sounds in the room –  even letting the audience be part of it. Moreover, Myles has given themselves “permission to be ugly” when performing, moving and gesticulating “to get over the shame of being somewhat a performer as well as a literary artist.”

Eileen Myles (b. 1949) is an American poet, novelist, performer and art journalist, who has produced several volumes of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, libretti, plays and performance pieces over the last three decades. Publications include ‘Afterglow’ (a dog memoir) (2017), ‘Inferno: A Poet’s Novel’ (2010), ’Skies’ (2001), ’Cool for You’ (2000) and ‘Chelsea Girls’ (1994, 2015). In 2015 ‘I Must Be Living Twice. New and Selected Poems 1975-2014’ was published. Myles has received a wide range of awards and fellowships such as four Lambda Book Awards, the Shelley Award (Poetry Society of America) (2010), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2012) and The Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing (2015). For more see: http://www.eileenmyles.com/

Eileen Myles was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg in August 2017 in connection with the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.

Camera: Mathias Nyholm og Simon Weyhe

Edited and produced by: Kasper Bech Dyg

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2018

Supported by Nordea-fonden