The Importance of Being Iceland

by Myles, Eileen

• ISBN13: 9781584350668
• ISBN10: 1584350660
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-05
• Publisher: Semiotext

Summary

Throughout her career, Eileen Myles has reclaimed poetry as public vocation. "Our time needs a shadow," she writes in this book. Framed by an account of her travels in Iceland, these essays assert inbetweenness as the most vital (and poetic) position to view the world as a whole. Culled from more than two decades of art and cultural criticism originally written for exhibitions, events, and journals, the essays in this book-on subjects ranging from Henry David Thoreau, James Schuyler, and Bjork to queer Russia, working class speech, California freeways, and flossing-counterpose the nuance of Iceland's deeply rooted yet fluid culture with the more prevalent, American fact of steamrolling "global" heterogeneity. Myles links ancient Icelandic verse, New York summer streets, the antiseptic malls of La Jolla, and the back of the Sister Spit tour van with an awareness that criticism is always a social gesture. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Eileen Myles, born in Boston in 1949 and a lifelong New Yorker, has authored more than twenty plays, libretti ("Hell"), and volumes of poetry and fiction, including Chelsea Girls, Cool for You, Sorry, Tree, and Not Me. Myles is a Professor Emeritus of Literature Writing at UCSD. Most recently, she received an arts writers grant from Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation.

Table of Contents

Iceland	p. 13
Art Essays
Play Paws	p. 53
Taylor Meade's Apartment	p. 57
It's A Wonderful Wave: Nicole Eisenman	p. 62
The Free Show	p. 68
Paul Lee's Piracy	p. 74
Evolving Waters	p. 78
Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings	p. 81
Sarah's Smoke	p. 88
Being in (a community of elsewheres)	p. 91
What I Saw	p. 92
Prints Of Words	p. 95
A Treatment Of Susanna Coffey	p. 104
About Martha Diamond	p. 109
People
Daniel Day Lewis	p. 119
Tory	p. 128
The Sonnets	p. 136
Jimmy: James Schuyler At Dia	p. 138
Today's Poets: Alice Notley & Ann Lauterbach At Dia	p. 140
The Art Of The Real	p. 143
Talks
How To Write An Avant-Garde Poem	p. 153
Everyday Barf	p. 163
Universal Cycle	p. 170
A Speech About Allen	p. 181
The End Of New England	p. 185
Introduction To Kay's Talk At White Box	p. 195
Mr. Twenty	p. 197
Eye: The Poems Of Jimmy Schuyler	p. 202
Travel
Blue Petersburg	p. 221
On the road (& at home) with Sister Spit	p. 232
Box of Rain	p. 238
On The Road With Bjork	p. 243
Body
Live Through That?!	p. 251
Jim Fahey	p. 256
A Wedding In Denmark	p. 261
My Sister's Wedding	p. 266
Heat	p. 271
A Recipe For Lesbian Brain	p. 274
Moving Pictures
Reunion	p. 281
The Universe In My Backyard: Russell Crotty	p. 289
Repeating Allen	p. 292
Brothers 'N' Sons & Female Heroes: Mike & George	p. 300
Mr. Poole	p. 304
Pistolary, The Complete Films Of Peggy Ahwesh	p. 308
The Time Of Craft	p. 315
Blogs: 2004-2006	p. 325
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