Description
Poetry. Performance Studies. Music. Clear Vinyl LP. ALOHA/IRISH TREES is a collection of new and old poems by Eileen Myles, many of which have never been featured in her previous print collections and all of which have never been featured on a vinyl record. Further, unlike the vast majority of vinyl-poetry records, ALOHA/IRISH TREES was recorded live. Live meaning that it encapsulates an experience that every poet is familiar with—an occasional linguistic flub can be heard now and then, as can the sound of the poet clearing her throat, taking a sip of water. "Fuck, this is so hard" is uttered on the first track of Side A. The final sentence heard on the last track of Side B is "I'm gonna catch up, I have to pee." Listening to ALOHA/IRISH TREES is listening to Eileen Myles read her work live, an aural experience easy to hear, hard to escape. "Myles has become a phenomenon for our times, a poet whose punk sensibility and fighter spirit is undying." —Semina Cooper
Author Bio
Eileen Myles was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1949, was educated in Catholic schools in Arlington, graduated from UMass Boston in 1971 and moved to New York City in 1974 to be a poet. She quickly became part of the reading, publishing and performance scene in the East Village, editing dodgems in the late 70s and becoming part of the community of St. Mark's Poetry Project where she studied and was friends with Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Paul Violi and Bill Zavatsky. In 1979 she was assistant to poet James Schuyler. She was Artistic Director of the Poetry Project in 1984-86. Myles is a vivid interpreter of her own work and travels widely in the US and Canada and internationally giving readings and performances. In 2007, she published SORRY, TREE (Wave Books, 2007), the latest of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction including Not Me (Semiotext(e), 1991), Chelsea Girls (Black Sparrow Books, 1994), The New Fuck You/adventures in lesbian reading (Semiotext(e), 1995), Cool for You (Soft Skull Press, 2000), Skies (Black Sparrow Books, 2001), The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (Semiotext(e), 2009) and Inferno: A Poet's Novel (OR Press, 2010). Her most recent book is SNOWFLAKE / DIFFERENT STREETS (Wave Books, 2012). She wrote the libretto for Hell, an opera with music composed by Michael Webster which was performed on both coasts, 2004-2006. In 2007 she received The Warhol/Creative Capital art writers' grant. In 2010 the Poetry Society of America gave her the Shelley Memorial Award and in 2011 she received the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction for her novel Inferno. She contributes to a wide number of publications including ArtForum, Bookforum, Parkett, and The Believer. She is a Professor Emeritus at UC San Diego, where she taught for five years. She lives in New York.
Author City: NY USA