Did you decide to become a poet or did it just happen?
I wrote poems in college but I didn't think of it as something you could actually do. It was my new, distracted thing to do, like doodling. It wasn't until the last job I had, at a publishing company--I had this typewriter in front of me all day, so I would just write poems. One day I wrote a poem I really liked, that was good. I realized the poem was real and the job wasn't.
What is the job description of a poet?
I would think it would be an ability to take account of your present situation and make a song out of words of it.
You're sort of like the weatherman: you're standing there in front of the weather, giving a public/private news report of the changing conditions.
What was high school like for you? Did you write in high school?
It was kind of hell.
I was gifted at the art of moving from gang to gang, but there wasn't really a group that worked for me; there wasn't an art crowd. You could be bad or you could be good. I felt like a loner. I was kind of a tomboy who transited the cool groups. I was into music, clothes, being cool. I followed bands. Dancing was important, music was important. I was lonely and depressed; music saved my ass.
If I got in trouble at school I would always offer to write a play. I went to a Catholic school, and they had no respect for creativity, but they would let you do a creative project in lieu of real work. I'd be, like, failing history and I'd say wait a minute, I'll write a play about Greek history. And I'd get all my friends to be in it and we'd tour the seventh grade classrooms.
I had a girl gang in junior high and if a girl was breaking up with a guy, I'd write a breakup note for them. Which was essentially a poem. Once I even read the poem for the girl. She threw the ring at the boy, and I read the poem.
Actually I always think that would be a great way for poets to make money, have a poet's employment agency and if you were going to have a wedding and wanted a poet you could call up and they'd send one over.
What did you read when you were 17?
I read all day long in school because school was so bad. I was very into science fiction--it was my dream world. I held onto the notion for so long that I was going to be an astronaut. I didn't take drugs in high school, so reading was my escape, my imagined flight.
What do you do besides being a poet? I mean, I know you're a professor, you've written a novel...
Mostly other writing in other forms. I'm working on an opera. I just wrote a libretto. Touring that has been a big job. It's reinventing theater for me.
I've been hearing more music lately; I would love to find musicians to collaborate with. I went to hear OOIOO, this Japanese girl band; the lead singer was in Boredoms, I think. They were musically tight and good.
I haven't made a film but I would love to. It's the medium everyone's thinking in, whether they're working in it or not.
If you could have a totally different job what would it be?
Some are already defunct: I would have liked to have been a dancer: modern dance, improv. It's an interesting, great life. But you really have to turn yourself into a choreographer fast.
Or a scientist. Or a lawyer. They can do real things for people.
Politics (as much as it is totally shameful right now) is still a completely great thing for women to do. [Editor's note: Eileen Myles ran a write-in campaign for President of the United States in 1992. She ran as an openly female candidate.]
What advice would you have for young women poets coming up now?
I think your friendships are really important. You need to find other people who are doing the things you're doing, or things you admire. Start building a network right away.
Poets need to travel, at various points in their lives, in groups. Get out and find likeminded people. That's how an audience and a career is built--friends and friends and friends and friends.
The problem is that people keep finding poetry in such boring and predictable places. Keep inventing and reinventing what a poet is and what a poet does. Plan actions as poets, perform together, put up posters of poems, make things up. It's like, you don't have to be in a band to have a band. Salt the culture with poetry.
Read Eileen's poem, "Girlfriend."
Want to find out more about Eileen? Check out her websites here or here.
