Evolution

by Eileen Myles

The first all-new collection of poems since 2011's Snowflake/different streets--and following the critically acclaimed Afterglow (a dog memoir), as well as the volume of selected poems, I Must Be Living Twice--here, in Evolution, we find the eminent, exuberant writer at the forefront of American literature, upending genre in a new vernacular that enacts--like nobody else--the way we speak (inside and out) today. Evolution, with its channeling of Quakers, Fresca, and cell phones, radiates vital insight, purpose, and risk, like in these opening lines of the title poem:

Something
unearthly
about
today
so I buy
a Diet Coke &
a newspaper
a version of "me"
something
about me on the
earth & its sneakers
& feeling like
the earth's furniture
but that can't be
true or like
the coke & the Times
it's true for a little
while.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Nonfiction, Feminism, Gender

222 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2018

About the author

Eileen Myles is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades.

Reviews

[Liz Mc2]

I often felt at a loss with this collection. Short lines, and sentences often fragmented and lightly punctuated, the poet wandering from one thought/structure to another in the middle so that they don’t make “sense.” Slowly, though, themes and patterns emerged, even though I was still often at a loss. Loss, for one: of the poet’s mother; of youth; of a less safe and conventional New York. But the persistence of desire, of curiosity, of life. A person still evolving. There are references to computers, notebooks, phones. The poems, in their informality and stream of consciousness, can feel like fragments of ideas ripped from that notebook or typed into a phone as Myles rides in a car. They gave a sense of immediate contact with another mind. A mind more daring than mine....

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for the introduction, the acceptance speech, and “Sweet Heart” alone.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Will I al-
ways confuse

a moment in my life
for the rest of my life”

[Sian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I never realized how outside I was until I realized they wouldn't let me in. They didn't want me. I didn't know. I just thought I was weird."

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

To say something is easy reading implies that it's fluffy, shallow, perhaps purely entertainment like a harlequin romance. Eileen Myles is not easy reading but she's easy to read and we are all the better for it. Working in a determinedly vertical manner, Myles narrates her life stories with interjections on love, sex, her philosophy of how the world works and what she's fighting for. Often tagged as an LGBGT, which she is, Myles deserves and to some extent gets the larger audience her poetry deserves. One really feels the she's put in the work to deliver poetry that feels as fresh as the day she wrote it, that moves with a quotidian fluency. Influenced by the Beats and poets like James Schuyler (how could anyone who has read Morning of the Poem not feel its effects), Myles makes this 220 page book of new poetry seem breezy. It's not, it's deeply serious, a chronicle of hers and our times that includes a dead-eye stare at her own foibles and humor to boot.

[Sarah High · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly the New York poet of our time, Myles' latest work is incomparably their best yet. A political commentary, a confession, a dedication to the ass (as we've seen before with Myles), Evolution is a collection on intimacy and how to deal with yourself throughout the Trump era.

[Jessica Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful! I picked this book up almost by accident and now I will be going back and reading all of Myles' work

[Grey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drove to marfa a week or more ago and felt the marfaland eileenland strongly. Feeling like a fangirl revisiting evolution very sweet and only a little melancholic. It was such perfect balm at one point. Spent a lot of time sitting on the steps junior year watching afternoons pass and playing YouTube Eileen readings in my ear. I love their readings. Weird emphasis and pacing but good so I’m glad I fell in luv with evolution from their audio. Today we were at the site where the tlatelolco massacre happened and I wondered where time goes. It was also junior year that I studied it in an urban theory course and made some comparison of the imperial “reverse panopticon” form to the Columbia campus. Horrible. Drew it all in perspective sitting there on the same steps. Thought it was some reference to a kindred ‘68 but now it’s like times all fucked up. I cant believe the world is violent but it is. I heart poetry

When the rain was pouring I wanted to be in here
silent with you

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spotted this book in the window of the University of Chicago Seminary Coop Bookstore, and thought, now there's a fun souvenir of Chicago to take home with me! I ended getting more than this one book, but if I'd only gotten this one, it would still have been a reason to be glad we visited the campus on our way home to Ohio (we decided to fly from SFO to Chicago, and drive the rest of the way).

The book opens with the text of a talk she gave that was co-sponsored by a Shaker Museum that begins "I am Ann Lee. I thought that would be a good place to start." (Ann Lee being the founder of the Shakers. Don't worry, she goes on to say "I am Eileen Myles," so the audience was not confused.) Another prose poem is called "Acceptance Speech" and is written as if Myles were accepting her victory in a presidential election. I think it may be my favorite piece in the collection. But there's plenty of wonderful poetry in here along with these prose pieces, so if you like Myles's work, you'll enjoy this collection. Certainly makes me want to read more of her work!

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eileen Myles writes stripped down and truncated lines here, while reminiscent of Robert Creeley in form, Myles is far more interested in the world of people. Politics, conceptions of self, elections, the history of Shakers, and elegy all weave these fragmentary, unpunctuated, and seemingly unadorned verse. Myles also has a gift for ambivalent or ambiguous lines that complicate the emotional resonance of the poems. My only complaint is that brevity and fragment are so consistent that one often longs for a poem in a different style just for variance. However, if you read this slowly and let it linger, I doubt this will be a problem.

[Elianne van Elderen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“my mouth is / red for every / child who / has starved / eating / the corpse / of their / father / or / mother. My corpse / is spaghetti / sharing birthdays / w a famous / clown / a famous / blind man / & a famous / actor. This cool / makes me / want to / divulge / go on exposing / my hunger / which is / the only / story I / know."

This book was a lot, in many ways, and I had to get used to that, but I liked it (a lot, I think??).

[tayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

yes, i did

[Christina Mainelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you're not reading eileen myles, what are you doing?

[Debs · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Allyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review first appeared on the blog Ally's Appraisals: https://wp.me/p37L0Q-X5.

My Thoughts: In Evolution we see a lot of the poet, Eileen Myles, in her work. I really enjoyed everything Evolution had to offer, the poetry is both emotional and refreshing - Myles shows us all that poetry can be.

Poetry makes us feel, and in Evolution we are offered a range of emotions: love, loss, desire, regret, and at times loneliness. Throughout the book we are given an insight into the woman herself - we learn about her relationship with her Mother, her feeling of loss, her love, and an almost distant feeling of desire.

Evolution features a range of styles from the author. There are long text based poems such as 'Acceptance Speech,' and smaller poems such as 'Paradise' which encapsulate a moment or idea. The majority of the poems are ones which feature shorter sentences, broken up with lines breaks. The style gives the poems not only a punchier feel but an interesting sense of rhythm.

The poems are great to read on the page but some of them ache to be recited. The longer poems such as 'Acceptance Speech' (a favourite of mine) and shorter more emotionally charged poems such as 'For You,' fill me with the need to hear them. Hell, even the opening of the book (surely too poetic to only be an introduction?!) is one I would gladly listen to, have the story told to me. The book is filled with many poems that I want to hear - I need to hear the emotion, the cadence, the poetry of the verse.

Best Bits: The below are some of my favourite poems from the book. I enjoyed them all, but these are the ones that stood out and grabbed me.

'our happiness' - pg 52.
'for you' - pg 69.
'Sharing Fall' - pg 84.
'August 23' - pg 106.
'Acceptance Speech' - pg 113.
'Today' - pg 144.
'A Little bit' - pg 193.

Favourite Quote:

'I lost
my loss
in a collective
of loss'

The above is the first four lines of the poem 'Sharing Fall.' I read those lines a number of times, they just stuck with me. The cadence. The repetition. The loss. <3

Recommendations: I really enjoyed reading Evolution and would recommend everyone giving, if not this book, then some of Myles poetry a go.

If you're new to poetry: Challenge yourself with her poetry, open yourself up to the experience, and see what you feel.

For the practiced poets: You're missing out if you haven't read Myles work... Why are you still here? You should be reading this book!

Please note: I received a copy of Evolution from NetGalley.

[W.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that the cover photograph looks like a depiction of a nest and a grave at once.

But it would be a grave with a window view. A high level grave with a window view. And metal steps you can use to leave should the emergency of not being dead suddenly occur.

I suppose it also looks like the womb and many of these poems go in and out of feelings and thoughts around the death of a mother. So there's that additional desire to wrap oneself up in one's past. But then it feels too warm. Get these covers off me, the poems irk and say. But then they're soon cold again. Give 'em back. Share. The poems talk to ghosts a lot. Good poems often do.

I like watching Eileen Myles have to rezone her feelings and redistribute her language (her syntax of feeling) to keep life and art interesting as the shadows of travels lengthen.

These poems might rebuff your desire for linearity at first, but if you set them aside and return after a first difficult read, you might find them melting on your tongue. They were hiding their secret sugars. Like trees do. These words live on a medium that was once tree. They have died to evolve as everyone needs to do. Even trees. Even words.

[JB · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a personal taste thing—I like Myles best when she’s in narrative or semi-narrative mode, while many of the poems in this volume lean towards impressionistic collections of overheard conversation, or inside jokes, or images too far away from me as a reader to access. Still, a lot of this is great and very engaging, but I wish there was more room for me as a reader in it, as someone who can participate by understanding rather than being stuck to glory mostly in the sound of the language as the personal meaning behind it remains distant and inaccessible.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought summer's a good
Growing season or is
it. Is summer just hot?
I could bring my flowers to your flowers, always
afraid when I show
that maybe I am making
a funeral.

A bit of a difficult reading experience, but looking back, there were several poems I really enjoyed.
Favorites: "A Gift for You", "Dream", "Angel", "Western Poem""Circus", "A hundred per cent"

[Vehka Kurjenmiekka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I think I just wasn't target audience of this book or something. Lots of poems felt like words were just splashed and scattered around the pages and at least in the Kindle edition words were sometimes cut in the middle for no apparent reason.

[Elina · Rating 4 out of 5]

*2024: read this again! Imagine if Eileen were president! What a world that would be! Acceptance Speech always makes emotional and I’ll keep dreaming of a poet president one day!

*2022: I love Eileen but also not my favourite but I love reading their poems they must have such an interesting life

[Tim Lane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve always admired Eileen Myles’ style. I didn’t feel very compelled to read this one cover to cover.

[Elena]

i don’t know what i think but i loved “television”

[Solita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it difficult to read these poems. Myles makes up her own rules, whether she writes prose or poetry. Sometimes she runs words without a "road map" (no punctuation, capitalization), or in her poems splits up a word (the beginning ends one line, the end begins the following line), and it's difficult for me to find coherence. But this, I suppose, is labeled "poetic license." (I'm ok with her splitting words up, as some poets do that.) I would like to hear her read her work, as I've heard she's a fantastic reader, and perhaps that might assist me in understanding how to read her work. I sometimes feel there is an Ashbery quality in some of the poems, and/or Cummings. IDK, I am mesmerized by her, but I don't know why. Because she's a "rock star" poet? I mean, her dog memoir is critically acclaimed, and I just didn't like it as much as some of her other prose, and I always have difficulty with her prose as it is, like, she goes all over the place, and I'm left with blanks, little fugues, breaking up coherence. Part of me loves to read her, and part of me wonders if her writing is more hype than anything else. Maybe because I find her work difficult to read, and I'm reading it wrong, but I can't find the music, the rhythm, the beat poetry is supposed to have. I will say, though, she does convey feeling, and THAT is poetic power. I will keep reading her. I will keep reading her until I decide whether I'm caught in a hype, or it's her power that draws my attention and admiration.

[charlie]

This is my first Myles book and it's very different from a lot of poetry that I've been reading. It read as very casual and stream-of-conscience in a way that I have an intuitive resistance to, but the sort of peripatetic quality of the poems is I think in fact very intentional and quite effective for a good chunk of the book. I wish there had been a little more variance in form (a lot of very short lines, enjambment as nearly the only syntax) but that's a personal quibble and not a flaw with the book. A lot to think about!

[Levy Erwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poetry graces us in Myles' characteristic vernacular style. Featuring lesbians, New York City, and a world that is falling apart, it could not be a more timely look inside the mind of the poet genius. The poems range in length, some only a sentence long, giving Rupi Kaur a run for her money. It also includes a speech that Myles gave in which they imagine themselves as having won the 2016 presidential election. If only, as per their presidential vision, we could convert the white house into a homeless shelter and send a delegation of our finest masseuses to Palestine.

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evolution

by Eileen Myles

Grove Atlantic

Grove Press

Poetry

Pub Date 11 Sep 2018

I am reviewing Evolution through Grove Press and Netgalley:

In her first publication since 2011’s Snowflake/Different Street and following her critically acclaimed collection Afterglow (A Dog’s Memoir) is the eminent and critically acclaimed writer on the forefront of American Literature.

I give Evolution three out of five stars!

Happy Reading

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The experimental New York poet returns with her first new collection since her career-spanning I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems and she ruminates on many things - her parents, dogs, and of course the current political landscape. Her poems are challenging, frenziedly moving through a host of topics, the product of a sharp rapid-fire mind.

[M]

"capitalism gnawing on its
bone its bloody

blazing empty

bone its porny

plastic bone

& no one's home"

"live in a stolen country that was always stolen
and worked largely by stolen people. Out of a conservative
diaspora came I mongrel poet from Massachusetts
to make my mark"

"Anything I say
is not
true, forgetting
everything & the present
popping
up like memory."

"She asked
me if
I wanted
to make
films"

And my favorite:

"To My Flowers

Why
did you just
come and
die."

[Ron Mohring · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars--I walked away from it but kept coming back, caught up in the book's immediacy. Frank O'Hara's ghost shining here, yes, but also wow and then mehh and then just drawn into the now-and-now-and-now of the poems' tracking their own making, as if the alphabet itself were tracks appearing in the snow of my screen. I could *feel* the writer thinking, selecting, almost in real time, or non-time, in that space where language comes to us in its varied incessant patterning.

[Donald Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing poet...

A little embarrassed to say this is the first poetry book by Myles I have found. Did not know about her until I read her book "For Now".
Her poetry is a pleasure to read and I understand why she is an award winning poet. While all her work is worth the read and to be read multiple times, I found her poem entitled "Earth" to be the most profound. It is one line- It's our poem.