Eileen Myles, the poet provocateur whose work straddles the boundaries of memoir, fiction, and performance, has long been a revered figure in the American literary landscape. Born and raised in Boston, Myles honed their voice on the vibrant streets of New York City, where they became an integral part of the legendary East Village scene of the 1970s and 80s.
Myles’ writing defies categorization, often blurring lines between the personal and political while capturing the gritty beauty of urban life and the intricacies of queer identity. Their critically acclaimed works, such as Chelsea Girls and Cool for You, have cemented Myles’ status as a cultural renegade, unafraid to challenge societal norms and push the boundaries of form.
Sharing ten of their all-time favorite books in a reading list for One Grand, Myles’ passion for mischief and unapologetic authenticity shine through. From the erotic poetry of John Weiners to Mikhail Bulgakov’s sparkling satire of Soviet life, check out their bookshelf below, and complement with the lifelong reading list of punk poet Patti Smith.
Eileen Myles’ Reading List
Under the Glacier by Halldor Laxness
“It’s like Iceland’s great novelist won a Nobel prize and went to Hollywood and then came home and wrote about how weird Iceland is having really seen the world. Laxness always writes about nature like a visionary.” -EM
Maud Marhta by Gwendolyn Brooks
“It’s one of the most spatially poetic novels ever. Each room Maud Martha lives in is grown by the very cautious and awesome pace of her language.” -EM
The Book of Frank by CAConrad
“Conrad’s mysterious American haiku are inky and dirty and disturbing and finally madly dancing on its one good leg forever. This book is a total masterpiece.” -EM
Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners by John Wieners
“The Hotel Wentley poems are nested in here, and they are the most grandly erotic and heartfelt homosexual sketches about living out of time in friendship on the edge, and seeing the whole trembling picture of mid-century America from there.” -EM
Winter in the Blood by James Welch
“This novel proves there is no greater altered state than a hangover, and poet novelist Welch has the surrealist chops to prove it.” -EM
Rose of No Man’s Land by Michelle Tea
“Michelle is our real Charles Dickens, and this small novel is working-class perfection itself: in a mall, young, gay, punk, and in love for the first time.” -EM
Conundrum by Jan Morris
“Her woman is shockingly conventional, yet to read this great travel writer’s account of transition is to understand the word “journey” truly.” -EM
Selected Poems by Medbh McGuckian
“Ireland’s best living poet is a shimmering candle of a catholic, and a fiercely female, starkly domestic shaman of the first order. Each time I read Medbh McGuckian she reorders my brain.” -EM
The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (also rec’d by Daniel Radcliffe, David Bowie, Johnny Depp, Marlon James, Patti Smith, Pearl Jam, Phoebe Waller-Bridge & Salman Rushdie)
“Bulgakov’s suffering under censorship yielded this sparkling novel in which Pontius Pilate shares space with a giant floating black cat, and elsewhere a man confined to a mental hospital for political reasons probably dreamed up the whole thing.” -EM
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
“This is like a dark lesbian genius rolling in a giant heap of damp, dead leaves. What a great, shaking, grieving party this book is — the best.” -EM
(via One Grand Books; photo by Roberto Ricciuti)
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