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I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975 - 2014
A collection of thrilling verse, including both new poems and beloved favourites, from the celebrated poet, modern cult icon, and author of nineteen books including Chelsea Girls.
Eileen Myles' work is known for its blend of reality and fiction, the sublime and the ephemeral. At once intimate and open-hearted, her poems are a raw, complex and compelling diary of postmodern life and invite readers into astonishing new considerations of familiar settings, from the beginnings and ends of love and the imperatives of sexual desire, to the daily wonder of a poet's life in New York City and beyond - into lush-and sometimes horrible-dream worlds, imbuing the landscapes of her writing with the vividness and energy of fantasy.
I Must Be Living Twice reflects Myles' sardonic, unapologetic, and freewheeling literary voice. Steeped in the culture of New York City, I Must Be Living Twice is a prism refracting a radical world and a compelling life.
Eileen Myles' work is known for its blend of reality and fiction, the sublime and the ephemeral. At once intimate and open-hearted, her poems are a raw, complex and compelling diary of postmodern life and invite readers into astonishing new considerations of familiar settings, from the beginnings and ends of love and the imperatives of sexual desire, to the daily wonder of a poet's life in New York City and beyond - into lush-and sometimes horrible-dream worlds, imbuing the landscapes of her writing with the vividness and energy of fantasy.
I Must Be Living Twice reflects Myles' sardonic, unapologetic, and freewheeling literary voice. Steeped in the culture of New York City, I Must Be Living Twice is a prism refracting a radical world and a compelling life.
368 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
February 17, 2016
I was drunk on water reading
a loud poem/s due to the library tomorrow like an assignment I enjoyed
a forced marathon I read them aloud with the confidence of someone role-playing
the poet who wrote them a.k.a. I was Eileen Myles tonight
my button-up shirt half unbuttoned because I got distracted on the route to my closet to change
for the futon where I folded up and read
These poems inspired me to write a postcard
a classic "wish you were here" listening to me read these to you as if they were mine and can I imagine you are mine, too, while I'm at it?
Recently I have been playing with the space bar
which feels like playing with lipstick
which feels like I'm playing with it wrong
only because everyone else has played with it longer
So you know what? I aged, now I am wise and now I can see I was wrong 3x about Eileen Myles's poetry: Sorry, Tree (read 2010: 2 stars), School of Fish (read 2010: 2 stars), Snowflake / different streets (read 2012: 2 stars) - lol!
I can hear (or is it: I can feel) so much rhythm now? I laugh a lot with these poems
Usually new and selected collections can be really hard to read in chronological order
but this is so fluid
I look forward to turning 64 thx to EM
I hope I cultivate my sense of humor vs. de-prioritizing it
(hmm, noted, goodreads is not spacebar-friendly)
==========
I wasn't interested in the newspaper / it was just something I needed to hold
The wooden counter at Binbon's is more interesting / than the newspaper but if I sat here reading the counter / I'd look like an asshole
===========
I appreciate this refusal almost to be sentimental like what you'd find in a poem that tries to feel or mean too much but then there are moments like:
I only want a place on the line, I don't / want it to stop with me or start / with me, really I don't want it to know I'm here / at all, I only love what finds me invisible / and touches me deeply.
a loud poem/s due to the library tomorrow like an assignment I enjoyed
a forced marathon I read them aloud with the confidence of someone role-playing
the poet who wrote them a.k.a. I was Eileen Myles tonight
my button-up shirt half unbuttoned because I got distracted on the route to my closet to change
for the futon where I folded up and read
These poems inspired me to write a postcard
a classic "wish you were here" listening to me read these to you as if they were mine and can I imagine you are mine, too, while I'm at it?
Recently I have been playing with the space bar
which feels like playing with lipstick
which feels like I'm playing with it wrong
only because everyone else has played with it longer
So you know what? I aged, now I am wise and now I can see I was wrong 3x about Eileen Myles's poetry: Sorry, Tree (read 2010: 2 stars), School of Fish (read 2010: 2 stars), Snowflake / different streets (read 2012: 2 stars) - lol!
I can hear (or is it: I can feel) so much rhythm now? I laugh a lot with these poems
Usually new and selected collections can be really hard to read in chronological order
but this is so fluid
I look forward to turning 64 thx to EM
I hope I cultivate my sense of humor vs. de-prioritizing it
(hmm, noted, goodreads is not spacebar-friendly)
==========
I wasn't interested in the newspaper / it was just something I needed to hold
The wooden counter at Binbon's is more interesting / than the newspaper but if I sat here reading the counter / I'd look like an asshole
===========
I appreciate this refusal almost to be sentimental like what you'd find in a poem that tries to feel or mean too much but then there are moments like:
I only want a place on the line, I don't / want it to stop with me or start / with me, really I don't want it to know I'm here / at all, I only love what finds me invisible / and touches me deeply.
November 12, 2016
"I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems" is a massive volume of poetry revealing a range of emotions, capturing energetic happiness and thrilling highs to crushing depressive lows, and the creativity and intensity of observations from the life of celebrated poet Eileen Myles (1949-). This volume covered the time frame between 1975-2014, showing the sharpness of evolving growth, emotional awareness and development which articulate/define the depth of maturity. Miles has written thousands of poems, her memoir "Chelsea Girls" was published in 1994.
It was noticeable that Miles, once a heavy smoker- often connected smoke metaphorically to her comings and goings, as a coke dealer (in younger years) she mentioned snorting her profits; her parents greatly concerned about her health and welfare. "Greece" is was where Myles wanted to visit on vacation. In "My Cheap Lifestyle" Myles recalled watching the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival on TV, she loved the performance of Janis Joplin and Otis Redding.
I didn't care for the poem "On The Death Of Robert Lowell" (1917-1977). Myles described the famous poet as a "loon" also "The old white haired coot"-- highlighting his admission to McLean Mental Hospital. While it's understandable readers are bound to find things about poets and/or their work they might not like-- this poem seemed uneccessarily rude and disrespectful to Lowell's memory. Another poem, "Merk" Myles observed that some of the poets she knew were partial artists, the lucky ones were dead.
After attending the University of Massachusetts Myles moved to California in 2007, wishing to be a part of a larger life, by that time she had seemed to achieve a degree of fame. "Porn Poems", "Bone"- missing a person pushed out of ones life, "Harmonica"- depression and lack of will to do anything, the sense of tiredness and being alone suggest her depressive states observed in her earlier writings continued in later years. Myles wrote easily about other poets, friends of hers and others, reactions to writing etc. this made for some good and interesting reading. There was a personal crisis that occurred while Myles was traveling abroad in Ireland (2012) that reflected her inner emotional strength and stability, the depressive and/or suicidal funk that she wrote about during adverse situations when she was younger wasn't either apparent or noticeably recorded.
Many of the poems are pages long and autobiographical, well defined, especially for those unfamiliar with her work. Sometimes the poems about ordinary life were less interesting, many of the quick free verse poems single words ran down a page. Myles wrote from her heart, her poetry covering numerous themes, many of gay life and culture, lost girlfriends and loves, beauty in the forms of nature, exploration and travel abroad, her poet friends... imaginatively, as she pulled up a chair to talk, lighting another cigarette.
With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
It was noticeable that Miles, once a heavy smoker- often connected smoke metaphorically to her comings and goings, as a coke dealer (in younger years) she mentioned snorting her profits; her parents greatly concerned about her health and welfare. "Greece" is was where Myles wanted to visit on vacation. In "My Cheap Lifestyle" Myles recalled watching the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival on TV, she loved the performance of Janis Joplin and Otis Redding.
I didn't care for the poem "On The Death Of Robert Lowell" (1917-1977). Myles described the famous poet as a "loon" also "The old white haired coot"-- highlighting his admission to McLean Mental Hospital. While it's understandable readers are bound to find things about poets and/or their work they might not like-- this poem seemed uneccessarily rude and disrespectful to Lowell's memory. Another poem, "Merk" Myles observed that some of the poets she knew were partial artists, the lucky ones were dead.
After attending the University of Massachusetts Myles moved to California in 2007, wishing to be a part of a larger life, by that time she had seemed to achieve a degree of fame. "Porn Poems", "Bone"- missing a person pushed out of ones life, "Harmonica"- depression and lack of will to do anything, the sense of tiredness and being alone suggest her depressive states observed in her earlier writings continued in later years. Myles wrote easily about other poets, friends of hers and others, reactions to writing etc. this made for some good and interesting reading. There was a personal crisis that occurred while Myles was traveling abroad in Ireland (2012) that reflected her inner emotional strength and stability, the depressive and/or suicidal funk that she wrote about during adverse situations when she was younger wasn't either apparent or noticeably recorded.
Many of the poems are pages long and autobiographical, well defined, especially for those unfamiliar with her work. Sometimes the poems about ordinary life were less interesting, many of the quick free verse poems single words ran down a page. Myles wrote from her heart, her poetry covering numerous themes, many of gay life and culture, lost girlfriends and loves, beauty in the forms of nature, exploration and travel abroad, her poet friends... imaginatively, as she pulled up a chair to talk, lighting another cigarette.
With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
May 6, 2020
I respect Myles more than I enjoy her work. I appreciate that she puts so much of herself into her poems. Almost all of them touch on one or more of: life as a lesbian, life in NYC, cats, drinking and smoking, being a poet, and life as a lesbian poet in NYC who smokes and drinks a lot. Her viewpoint is largely hedonic materialism, and she's a good advocate for it. However, it just doesn't scratch the itch for transcendence I have for poetry.
I do like her pithiness and ability to wring impact out of very short lines (sometimes only one or two words). A lot of her work seems like inside jokes or free association. The words are punchy but it's often hard and rocky soil for excavating meaning from the poem. Also, I quickly weary of poetry whose muse is poetry itself. I get it, you're a poet, I'm reading a poem: I don't need to hear about "poets" in every piece.
This is a decent collection that surveys a long career but I feel little need to search out more of Myles' work.
I do like her pithiness and ability to wring impact out of very short lines (sometimes only one or two words). A lot of her work seems like inside jokes or free association. The words are punchy but it's often hard and rocky soil for excavating meaning from the poem. Also, I quickly weary of poetry whose muse is poetry itself. I get it, you're a poet, I'm reading a poem: I don't need to hear about "poets" in every piece.
This is a decent collection that surveys a long career but I feel little need to search out more of Myles' work.
October 21, 2021
I read this over 8 months, dipping into it every now and then on the train to and from the city and at home as a sort of respite, it was much less of a commitment than a novel and the fragmentation of this type of reading was really what I needed this year. Like all Myles' writing it felt youthful, undiluted, gritty and honest in the best ways but I wasn't moved by it as much as I had expected to be (at least not to the point where I flick back through the book and find several stanzas underlined). I think I even enjoyed Chelsea Girls more and the prose epilogue to this collection reflecting on poems as sorts of energy that you return to was one of its highlights.
November 12, 2023
New to poetry but my favorite poet I've read so far. This book collected poems from across Myles' career and adds a couple new ones. Their poems are funny, sad, angry, intellectual, straightforward, abstract, just lots of stuff all at once. And they manage to capture a lot of human experience from the ravages of love to the ravages of loneliness to the embarrassment of wanting to be liked by a cashier. And lots about living in New York. Wonderful stuff and I don't want to dive into their individual books after loving everything collected here.
May 25, 2020
*3,5
Eileen, wat zou ik graag met je rondhangen.
Eileen, wat zou ik graag met je rondhangen.
October 2, 2019
ok im done with this
December 28, 2023
ya this was brilliant, absolutely l-o-v-e-d it <33
'peanut butter' was indeed a great starting point & one of my faves for sure (even though that feels ironic considering allergies; curious whether i'd be immoderately in love, too). thank you so much:))
i want to lean
my everything
with you
make home for your hubris
I want to read the words you circld over and over again
'peanut butter' was indeed a great starting point & one of my faves for sure (even though that feels ironic considering allergies; curious whether i'd be immoderately in love, too). thank you so much:))
i want to lean
my everything
with you
make home for your hubris
I want to read the words you circld over and over again
September 28, 2019
Finding out I don’t think I enjoy poetry that much
November 3, 2015
Poet Eileen Myles finally gets her due in this handsome overview of a long, fecund career--the lean, jagged poems cut and console. I need these poems in my life.
I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
...
Why shouldn't
something
I have always
known be the
very best there
is. I love you
from my
childhood,
starting back
there when
one day was
just like the
rest, random
growth and
breezes, constant
love, a sand-
wich in the
middle of
day,
a tiny step
in the vastly
conventional
path of
the Sun. I
squint. I
wink. I
take the
ride.
I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
...
Why shouldn't
something
I have always
known be the
very best there
is. I love you
from my
childhood,
starting back
there when
one day was
just like the
rest, random
growth and
breezes, constant
love, a sand-
wich in the
middle of
day,
a tiny step
in the vastly
conventional
path of
the Sun. I
squint. I
wink. I
take the
ride.
November 1, 2015
I'm gonna wallpaper my entire house with the pages of this book so I can never not be reading her poems.
September 13, 2022
im absolutely obsessed. i must reread it twice
August 1, 2017
3.75 stars. My feelings are somewhat mixed, as I don't read much poetry in the meandering, better-read-out-loud style, and I'll likely YouTube some of their performances to get the full effect of the pieces here. That said, this is a really cool selection of Myles's poetry that I think both readers and non-readers of poetry would enjoy. It's nice to see the growth in their work over a forty-year span, through which they arrive at some thoughtful truths regarding matters of gender and feminism and identity.
July 31, 2022
of course myles is living twice. her first life, pre-2001, was lit and her poetry was funny and interesting, and her second life, post-2001, is mid. still some good stuff but damn, she really fell off
Read
December 21, 2015better than ever! i still can't understand how eileen myles turned from annoying to my hero but there it is.
November 8, 2015
An absolutely great read. A must read.
January 16, 2022
I love this collection so much - it’s spell bounding. I picked it up, and couldn’t put it down the first night I got it, and I keep revisiting it in short bursts. I really have no idea how to properly review it, but I feel like I should at least note my awe.
It’s a huge collection - 39 years (1975-2014) of poetry. It’s very accessible. The poems are often in very short lines, making them easy to read. Sometimes they are run-on sentences, sometimes fragments - it’s also deceptively simple, there is so much more than what at first appears. These are poems to read multiple times. Their voice sometimes has a somewhat gritty and raw feeling.. It’s street, it’s working class - at moments I can clearly hear the Boston accent. As a gender-queer lesbian, there are plenty of poems about queerness and sex. Also, about dogs and coffee and New York City and clouds. It’s edgy and honest and often really funny and witty too.
I definitely recommend adding this to your collection if you are into poetry at all - or even if you aren’t, just check it out.
I don’t think I can properly list my favorites like I usually do - there were so many I liked for so many different reasons, so I’ll just end with an excerpt I loved
Dogs do not believe in God or Art.
Intrinsically they have a grip
on things.
I unfortunately, do not. I sit
here with a bottle of beer, a cigarette
and my latest poem, The Irony of the Leash.
It’s a huge collection - 39 years (1975-2014) of poetry. It’s very accessible. The poems are often in very short lines, making them easy to read. Sometimes they are run-on sentences, sometimes fragments - it’s also deceptively simple, there is so much more than what at first appears. These are poems to read multiple times. Their voice sometimes has a somewhat gritty and raw feeling.. It’s street, it’s working class - at moments I can clearly hear the Boston accent. As a gender-queer lesbian, there are plenty of poems about queerness and sex. Also, about dogs and coffee and New York City and clouds. It’s edgy and honest and often really funny and witty too.
I definitely recommend adding this to your collection if you are into poetry at all - or even if you aren’t, just check it out.
I don’t think I can properly list my favorites like I usually do - there were so many I liked for so many different reasons, so I’ll just end with an excerpt I loved
Dogs do not believe in God or Art.
Intrinsically they have a grip
on things.
I unfortunately, do not. I sit
here with a bottle of beer, a cigarette
and my latest poem, The Irony of the Leash.
Read
May 13, 2017I freakin love Eileen Myles - absolutely no one has ever made me want to be a poet so bad. No one else has made the words jump out of their poems and go about in my world. I kept this volume by my bed for so long, reading a poem or two now and then, and it's the only book of poetry I'd treat this way - I don't know why it's so special, but it really is. (Writing this review mainly to say I can't wait for her new book, about her dog, to be published. I can't wait.)
December 2, 2020
About halfway through, around the mid 90s, her poetry seems to decline. Even the best work is often scattershot, easily distracted, random, but these qualities start to take over until I found myself turning dozens of sparsely laid out pages for one memorable or recognisable image or thought.
But there are brilliant moments, and two poems about tulips that I especially treasure.
But there are brilliant moments, and two poems about tulips that I especially treasure.
Read
May 30, 2023I really didn’t enjoy the other works of Myles I read, but I liked this one, which is interesting given that this is a compilation of basically all their writing throughout the years. These poems were still strange but in a way that felt meaningful and more beautiful—especially the ones about love and New York. I also really liked the epilogue.
September 26, 2019
didn’t love this collection, but i didn’t hate it!
fave poem: peanut butter
fave line: “Night / the old charmer is in love with / candles. Holds a fistful of / morning behind his back” (from along the strand)
fave poem: peanut butter
fave line: “Night / the old charmer is in love with / candles. Holds a fistful of / morning behind his back” (from along the strand)
February 6, 2019
Myles’s poetry is quite different from Rich’s; her lines are short and jagged, often only three or four words each. Her style of thought is discursive: I often feel lost, reading her, until a vivid observation or connection jumps out. “Peanut Butter” is the poem that brought me to Myles, but the sweary dismissiveness of “On the Death of Robert Lowell” makes me laugh; “Yellow Tulips” is unashamedly happy; the opening of “Mal Maison” is devastating. “And Then the Weather Arrives” is maybe peak Myles: it feels like it’s written in a sort of personal code, but you understand the emotions, if not the details.
May 19, 2023
they really fell off after the 80s huh. anyway your 15 y/o lesbian niece would prob still love this
June 6, 2023
4.5/5 (Goodreads needs half stars.)
Myles !!!!! You’re a genius !!!!!!!
Myles !!!!! You’re a genius !!!!!!!
December 18, 2024
a treat from beginning to end. eileen myles never disappoints
October 30, 2018
Beautiful poems. 5 stars and best reads pile.
March 17, 2019
Quite intresting about what the author makes poetry
March 22, 2021
This entire collection feels like someone writing into and back out of a writer’s slump - it’s pretty astounding how well Myles can write about nothing, and it’s pretty astounding how she asserts so well that there is no such thing as writing about nothing, we’re all saying something if we write
January 29, 2018
"Is it the same person? It's the same life. The same gone person, feeling so anonymous in her love. I remember the joke Bernadette, her husband (Lewis, otherwise he would hate it) and I had which was what she said as we were breaking up: that she was no one. No I guess we had this conversation earlier when we were all in love. She was no one. I said I was anyone. He said it would be nice to be someone. So when I missed her I wrote "I don't know no one / anymore who's / up all night".
And we did stay up all night at first. Don't lovers always."
AND WHEN THE WEATHER ARRIVES
I don't know no one
anymore who's
up all night.
Wouldn't it be fun
to hear someone
really tired
come walking
up your stairs
and knock on your door.
Come here
and share the rain with me. You.
Isn't it wonderful to hear
the universe
shudder. How old it all,
everything,
must be.
How slow it goes, steaming,
coffee, marvelous morning,
the tiniest hairs
on the trees' arms
coming visible.
I like it better,
no one knows
sweetness, moving your
lips in silence.
Closing your eyes all night.
It's so much better
disarming myself
from terror, and light
passing through
a painting I stuck
on a window
earlier, when I was scared.
It's great, it's really great.
Trees hold the world
and the weather
moves slow.
Even a body dissolves
and takes a place, incorrectly,
everywhere I would
like to nuzzle,
and plants a heart
in the world
voiceless.
I began knocking.
Ridiculous. Just to hear
your echo back,
arm against face
just to stop those fucking
trucks, my thoughts
of vanishing
into that sweetness.
And we did stay up all night at first. Don't lovers always."
AND WHEN THE WEATHER ARRIVES
I don't know no one
anymore who's
up all night.
Wouldn't it be fun
to hear someone
really tired
come walking
up your stairs
and knock on your door.
Come here
and share the rain with me. You.
Isn't it wonderful to hear
the universe
shudder. How old it all,
everything,
must be.
How slow it goes, steaming,
coffee, marvelous morning,
the tiniest hairs
on the trees' arms
coming visible.
I like it better,
no one knows
sweetness, moving your
lips in silence.
Closing your eyes all night.
It's so much better
disarming myself
from terror, and light
passing through
a painting I stuck
on a window
earlier, when I was scared.
It's great, it's really great.
Trees hold the world
and the weather
moves slow.
Even a body dissolves
and takes a place, incorrectly,
everywhere I would
like to nuzzle,
and plants a heart
in the world
voiceless.
I began knocking.
Ridiculous. Just to hear
your echo back,
arm against face
just to stop those fucking
trucks, my thoughts
of vanishing
into that sweetness.
January 10, 2016
A solid, engaging, and very humane collection of poems, and lots of them. I would definitely put Myles in the camp of an O’Hara or Kenneth Koch: her poems are walking poems, mostly, and they can ramble and be kind of baggy, but they almost always end up someplace interesting as she reflects on urban culture, her own experience of the world, etc. As such, they are not varied in style or tone (mostly): they rather pick up new things to reflect on in some of the same ways she does for her entire career. I think the poems I’ve read are better before 1996, with some great poems coming later—there are some very good post 9/11 poems, and I like some of those that reflect on the move to Cali after a lifetime (it seems) in NYC. But the quality of these particular poems makes them standouts rather than the average quality poem of her earlier collections. The short essay at the end is revealing and strange, in the sense that the story Myles tells about her poem is as interesting, if pretty different, than what I told myself the poem was about.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews