Meeting with Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles (they/them) is one of the authors who fundamentally changed the way we think about contemporary queer, experimental, and avant-garde poetry in the US. Associated since the 1970s with the New York art community, creating poetry, prose and journalistic texts, as well as theatrical performances, performances and opera librettos, they consistently push the boundaries between poetry, autobiography and critical reflection on reality.

Myles' work, situated at the intersection of spoken word and engaged literature, is characterized by exceptional linguistic intensity, formal uncompromising and deep social sensitivity. It emerges from the experience of everyday life and never remains indifferent to it: the private becomes a space for social observation, and language becomes a tool for studying the relations of power, gender, class, corporeality and identity.

Myles uses a language that is seemingly simple and close to the rhythm of speech, which, in essence, is extremely precisely constructed. Their poems can be confessional and analytical, intimate and public, sparing and formally radical at the same time. The tension between the spontaneity of expression and literary self-awareness, characteristic of their writing, makes the individual experience the starting point for a broader reflection on how we live, work, love, function in the city and negotiate our own place in the world.

During the meeting we will talk about poetry as a practice of life and a form of presence in the public space, about the New York counterculture, the traditions of queer and performative poetry, as well as what happens to personal experience when it is subjected to the action of language. We will also take part in a performative reading of poetry by Eileen Myles.

The meeting accompanies the first such extensive Polish presentation of the work of Eileen Myles. Prepared by the Centre for Culture and Art in Wrocław, the volume includes about 60 poems from different periods of their activity — from texts related to the New York poetry scene of the 1970s and 1980s to later works — and allows us to trace the development of the poetics characteristic of Myles. Maciej Topolski, Joanna Mąkowska and Karol Poręba are responsible for the translation.

So far, only one poem by Myles, “Broken Cindy”, has been published in Polish. The new volume is therefore not only the first such wide meeting of Polish readers with their work, but also an important complement to the picture of contemporary American poetry available in translation.

The meeting will be led by Prof. Kacper Bartczak.

The event is organized in cooperation with the Institute of English Studies of the University of Lodz.

About the publication:

Eileen Myles One day, a few bright days A selection of poems

Edited by: Agnieszka Chodysz-Foryś and Paweł Szroniak Selection: Agnieszka Chodysz-Foryś, Joanna Mąkowska, Karol Poręba Translation: Joanna Mąkowska, Karol Poręba, Maciej Topolski Members: Joanna Krakowska Coordination: Marharyta Rubanenko

Publisher: Centre for Culture and Art in Wrocław — Institute of Culture of the Lower Silesian Voivodship Project: Zuzanna Derlacz Illustrations: Ewa Głowacka

The publication was published with the support of the Book Institute as part of the publishing program Inne Traditions. The project is co-financed from the funds of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage within the framework of the targeted grant no. 3/DF-VII/2026 and from the budget of the Lower Silesian Voivodship Local Government. The meeting takes place as part of the program of the International Performance Festival “New Perspectives”. The project is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the funds of the Culture Promotion Fund — a state special purpose fund and from the budget of the Local Government of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship

BIO: Eileen Myles (born 1949, pronouns: they/them) came to New York from Boston in 1974 to become a poet. Since then, they have published twenty-five books of various genres (although primarily poetry), written in their characteristic first-person narrative language.

Among their most recent publications are Birdwatching (Phonograph, 2026), featuring a previously unpublished long poem from 1978, as well as early works that were released in April; Pathetic Literature (2022), edited by Myles, and a “Working Life” (2023), a collection of poems. Their prose work includes Chelsea Girls (1994), which won the French Inrockuptibles Award for Best Foreign Novel, Cool for You (2000), Inferno (a poet's novel) (2010) and Afterglow (2017). Texts devoted to art are collected in The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009). Volumes of poetry include Evolution (2018) and I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975—2014, and their Super 8 puppet road movie, The Trip, is available on YouTube. They live in New York and in Marfa, Texas.

Kacper Bartczak (born 1972) — poet, essayist, translator from English, literary critic and researcher, academic lecturer.

He has published collections of poems: Strefa delujonych (2000), Domy mediowe (2003), Życie nych (2009), Przenicacy (2013), Organic poems (2015), Food sovereign (2017), Naworadiowa (2019), Widoki wymazy (2021) and Czas kompost (2023), as well as volumes of essays: Świat nie scalony (2009) and Matter and Autocreation. Inquiries in Multisyllabic Poetics (2019), he is also the author of many translations of American poets and poets. He first gained recognition as an essayist. For the volume of sketches The World Not Merged was honored with the Prize “Literature in the World” (2009). Breakthrough for the reception of his poetry were Organic Poems, for which he was nominated for the Gdynia Literary Award (2016) and the Wrocław Poetry Prize Silesius (2016). For the volume Compost Time was again nominated for this award (2023). In 2025 he received the Wrocław Silesius Poetry Prize in its most prestigious edition — for his lifetime of work. From English he translated and published collections of poems by Peter Gizzi, Rae Armantrout and Charles Bernstein, translated and discussed the works of such authors as John Ashbery, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Muriel Rukeyser, Louise Glück, Marjorie Perloff. As a university professor, he heads the Department of North American Literature and Culture of the Institute of English Studies of the University of Lodz. Kacper Bartczak's poems have been translated into English and German.