Skies

by Eileen Myles

In a departure from earlier work, Eileen Myles’ Skies is a book of pared-down, cloud-like poems, wisp-like on the page yet as intensely colored as a sunset. Although their work conjures the texture of wind and the broad spaces of the sky, these poems are not serenely pastoral. Rather, Myles’ sparse blank verse is concerned with the diaphanous qualities of perception, as if her momentary experiences were as slippery and translucent as clouds. A sometimes brutal loneliness and urgent but stoic sensuality results, finding its expression in simple orange, grey, yellow, white, rose.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

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

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

"

.

Language
takes
the size
of your
life. "

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

reading eileen for the first time in many months it feels like coming home.. reading eileen is like a nice breath in and out and also like listening to the album true love by hovvdy. i love you eileen

skipped the bookending panel sections because they were boring and i didn’t care i just wanted the poems!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's called skies. really you should read it just for that. that thing "up" there called the firmament is pretty remarkable. Oh yea, so is the poetry of Eileen Myles.

[lola · Rating 2 out of 5]

pissed. most of these poems were actually about the sky.

[Carmen Rios · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Eileen Myles poem said this and was called “Smile”:

“Every
time he smiled he thought Eileen
is a fool. Or that’s what love looks
like.”

Somewhere between that day and today, the day you let me talk about Eileen Myles, I left class and bought a leather bomber jacket and bought Skies. I had also developed an ebay addiction. Skies is a collection of poems. It was really cheap on ebay. The day after it arrived, I packed a bag and left home. I packed Skies. I didn’t want to lose it so I carried it with me.

That night I ended up at a close friend who also writes for Autostraddle‘s house. At the end of the night it was my two friends and I and Eileen. I read Skies to them.

When I put Skies in my backpack I put away a photograph inside of someone I thought I was losing. I knew it would be safe there because I was going to keep Skies on my bedside table. It seemed cute, just her and I and Eileen.

More on Autostraddle: https://www.autostraddle.com/pure-poe...

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I should admit I like Eileen Myles more in theory than in practice.

[Roshan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give the poems in this collection five stars & the transcribed panel discussion that frames the book 2 stars

[Carlynn]

from "Melanie," pp. 149-150

I'd like
to get
some little
thing accurate
in my
life.