Living Twice Squared Through Poetry

Celebrating LGBTQ Poets for Poetry Month

There are some experiences in life that leave imprints on your soul. Eileen Myles is a legend who rarely needs an introduction. But just in case: Myles is a queer badass, lesbian punk, poet and writer.

Hearing Eileen Myles perform at the University of Sydney in 2016 was one of those soul-altering experiences. I remember walking the streets of Sydeny as if I was floating in an indelible cloud of jouissance. 

It wasn't as simple as hearing her read or the sound of her voice, it was interacting with a corporeal performance of poetry. It was witnessing a body becoming the beat of a poem, an act that changes something in the room, shifts directions, alters perceptions, tattoos the air with words.

It felt as though there was a collective transformation as language, moving through the flesh of a poet, generated a bodily response within the audience. 

When introducing Myles, Kate Lilley couldn't have put it better: "an event with Eileen Myles is no ordinary event, in this country or any other… It's a page-turning, hanging-out type experience… Tonight it's as if we are living four times. Tonight, we are living twice squared."

Myles embodies the potential of poetry as a public and political platform, rather than a private, silent process. As her playful energy enveloped Footbridge Theatre there was an undeniable sensation that language is what makes us who we are. 

Myles leaves us with the impression that outside of language we are unable to know ourselves, that we can only come to know what we don't know through language and - through language - we can reach the limit of our understanding.

Her rhythm is one of spontaneity and effortless precision. A single instant was born from each line. The theatre became a collection of shimmering moments, all buzzing and rubbing up against one another, in an unforgettable evening of poetic multiplicities.

"I love tulips because they die so beautifully." 

~ Eileen Myles

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Read here how my soul was altered by another LGBTQ writer: 

Stevi-Lee Alver is an Australian writer and tattoo artist. She lives in the middle of Brazil with her wife. She loves bush walks and waterfalls but misses the ocean.