Cuthwulf Eileen Myles (they/them) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has won them acclaim from critics and readers alike.
Their fiction includes Chelsea Girls (1994), Cool for You (2000), Inferno (a poet’s novel) (2010), and Afterglow (2017). Their writing on art was gathered in the volume The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009). Books of poetry include Evolution (2018) and I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014. Their newest collection of poems, a “Working Life”, was released in 2024, and the anthology Pathetic Literature, which they edited, came out in 2022. Their photography has been shown in New York at Bridget Donahue and in Provincetown at Schoolhouse Gallery. Their Super 8 road film, The Trip, can be seen on YouTube.
Myles graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1971. Their poetic education mainly took place at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, where they attended almost every single reading for ten years and participated in workshops led by Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan, Bill Zavatsky, and Paul Violi. From 1984 to 1986, they were the artistic director of St. Mark’s Poetry Project.
From 1977 to 1979, Myles published the little magazine dodgems. They worked as assistant to poet James Schuyler in 1979 while he was living in the Chelsea Hotel. In the 1980s and 90s, they worked on both collaborative and individual theater projects. Joan of Arc, a spiritual entertainment and Patriarchy (a play) were both performed at St. Mark’s Church. Leaving New York, a solo performance piece, and Feeling Blue Pts. 1, 2 & 3 and Modern Art, written and directed by Myles, were produced at PS 122. In 2004, Myles wrote the libretto for the opera Hell composed by Michael Webster, with productions in 2004 and 2006. In 2010, they created and directed for the Dia Center for the Arts a performance piece, The Collection of Silence, which involved dancers, poets, children, visual artists, and Buddhists in a collective public act of silence at the Hispanic Society in New York.
Myles has contributed poems, other writing, and photos to many publications including The Atlantic, New York Review of Books, BookForum, ArtForum, Art in America, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Believer, Vice, Poetry, Dazed and Confused, The New York Times, The Nation, The New Republic, Playboy, New York Magazine, Earth’s Daughters, The Recluse, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. They’ve been profiled and reviewed in many of these same publications. They’ve written catalog essays on Tabboo!, Nan Goldin, Carolee Schneeman, Stephane Mandelbaum, Justin Kimball, Moyra Davy and Peter Hujar, Nicole Eisenman, Kelly Reichardt, Dani and Sheila ReStack, Jess Perlitz, Donald Judd, Susanna Coffey, Kathy Bradford, Martha Diamond, Shannon Ebner, Marilyn Minter, Sal Randolph, Zoe Leonard, Cathy Opie, Paul Thek, Jack Pierson and many others. They’ve read their poems, spoken, and presented their work at festivals, colleges, galleries, museums, bookstores, cafes, and parks all over North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand since the early 1980s. Notably, they toured nationally in a van with Sister Spit in both 1997 and 2007. Most of their books are on Audible, read by them, and it’s their preferred way of being received, next to live.
Myles has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Warhol/Creative Capital Arts Writers grant, three Lambda Book Awards and a Pioneer lifetime achievement award, the Shelley Prize from the Poetry Society of America, and an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. In 2016, they were awarded a Creative Capital grant and the Clark Prize for excellence in art writing. In 2019, they received a poetry award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. In 2020, they received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, and in 2022, they were inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York City and Marfa, Texas, with a pit bull named Honey.
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More Cuthwulf Eileen Myles
Video: Myles reads from their collection a "Working Life" at the Free Library of Philadelphia
Video: Myles is interviewed by Linn Ullmann at the Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark
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Photo by Shae Detar.