a "Working Life"
Dizzying
Offbeat
Original

a "Working Life"

Eileen Myles2023
From “one of the essential voices in American poetry” (New York Times) comes a rich new collection of expansive, light-footed, and cheerfully foreboding poems oddly in tune with our strange and evolving present The first new collection since Evolution from the prolific poet, activist, and writer Eileen Myles, a “Working Life” unerringly captures the measure of life. Whether alone or in relationship, on city sidewalks or in the country, their lyrics always engage with permanence and mortality, danger and safety, fear and wonder. a “Working Life” is a book transfixed by the everyday: the “sweet accumulation” of birds outside a window, a cup of coffee and a slice of pizza, a lover’s foot on the bed. These poems arise in the close quarters of air travel, the flashing of a landscape through a train window, or simply in a truck tooling around town, or on foot with a dog in all the places that held us during the pandemic lockdowns. Myles’s lines unabashedly sing both the happy contradictions of love and sex, spill over with warnings about the not-so future world threatened by climate change and capitalism, and also find transcendent wonder in the landscapes and animals around us, and in the solitary and collective act of caring for one another and our world. With intelligence, heart, and singular vision, a “Working Life” shows Eileen Myles working at a thrilling new pitch of their poetic and philosophical powers.
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Reviews

Photo of Patricia K
Patricia K@thepoemzone
Photo of Seher Mohsin
Seher Mohsin@bookstagramofmine
4 stars
Jan 14, 2023
Playful
Original
Photo of Emma Younger
Emma Younger@emmarain
4 stars
Aug 6, 2023
Offbeat
Dizzying

Highlights

Photo of Seher Mohsin
Seher Mohsin@bookstagramofmine
Page 16
Photo of Seher Mohsin
Seher Mohsin@bookstagramofmine
Page 63
Photo of Seher Mohsin
Seher Mohsin@bookstagramofmine
Page 67
Photo of Seher Mohsin
Seher Mohsin@bookstagramofmine
Page 243