An evening with Eileen Myles

Eileen (they/them) belong to the group of authors who fundamentally changed the way we think about contemporary queer, experimental, and avant-garde poetry in the USA. Associated with the New York art scene since the 1970s, they create poetry, prose, and journalistic texts, as well as theatrical plays, performances, and opera librettos that consistently push the boundaries between poetry, autobiography, and critical reflection on reality. Situated at the intersection of spoken word and engaged literature, Myles’s work is characterized by exceptional linguistic intensity, formal uncompromisingness, and deep social sensitivity. It grows from the experience of everyday life and never remains indifferent to it. The private becomes a space for social observation, while language serves as a tool for examining power dynamics, gender, class, corporality, and identity.

Myles use a language that is seemingly simple and close to the rhythm of speech, but in reality, incredibly precise. Their poems manage to be simultaneously confessional and analytical, intimate and public, spare and formally radical. In them, individual experience becomes a starting point for a broader reflection on how we live, work, love, function in the city, and negotiate our own place in the world.

During the meeting, we will talk about poetry as a practice of life and a form of presence in the public space, about the New York counterculture, the traditions of queer and performative poetry, as well as what happens to personal experience when it is subjected to the action of language. We will also take part in a performative poetry reading by Eileen Myles.

The meeting accompanies the first such comprehensive presentation of Eileen Myles’s work in Poland. Prepared by the Culture and Art Centre in Wrocław, the volume includes about 60 poems from various periods of their activity—from texts associated with the New York poetry scene of the 70s and 80s to later works—allowing readers to trace the development of the poetics characteristic of Myles. The translation was done by Maciej Topolski, Joanna Mąkowska, and Karol Poręba.

Until now, only one poem by Myles, „Broken Cindy,” had been published in Polish. The new volume is therefore not only the first such extensive encounter for Polish readers with their work, but also a significant addition to the picture of contemporary American poetry available in translation.

The publication was released with the support of the Book Institute within the „Inne Tradycje” (Other Traditions) publishing program. The project is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the targeted grant No. 3/DF-VII/2026 and from the budget of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Local Government.

The meeting takes place as part of the International Performance Festival „Nowe Spojrzenia” (New Looks). The project is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the Culture Promotion Fund—a state targeted fund—and from the budget of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Local Government.

Edited by: Agnieszka Chodysz-Foryś and Paweł Szroniak
Selection: Agnieszka Chodysz-Foryś, Joanna Mąkowska, Karol Poręba
Translation: Joanna Mąkowska, Karol Poręba, Maciej Topolski
Afterword: Joanna Krakowska
Coordination: Marharyta Rubanenko

Moderator: Krystyna Mazur

Publisher: Culture and Art Centre in Wrocław – Cultural Institution of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Local Government
Design: Zuzanna Derlacz
Illustrations: Ewa Głowacka

b. 1949, pronouns they/them; they came to New York from Boston in 1974 to become a poet. Since then, they have published twenty-five books across various genres (though primarily poetry), written in their characteristic first-person narrative language.

Among their latest publications is Birdwatching (Fonograf, 2026), featuring a previously unpublished long poem from 1978, as well as early works that appeared in April; Pathetic Literature (2022), edited by Myles, and a Working Life (2023)—a poetry collection. Their prose works include Chelsea Girls (1994), which won the French Inrockuptibles prize for best foreign novel, Cool for You (2000), Inferno (a poet’s novel) (2010), and Afterglow (2017).

Their writings on art are collected in The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009). Their poetry volumes include Evolution (2018) and I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975–2014. Their Super 8 puppet road movie, The Trip, is available on YouTube.

They live in New York and in Marfa, Texas.