What do you think?
Rate this book
Inferno: A Poet's Novel
Loosely following Dante's epic by fashioning her own riveting account into three distinct parts, Eileen Myles brings her unparalleled brand of raw intellect and insight to her latest novel, The Inferno.
The first part of the story, mesmerizing readers with its ripple of memoir, tells the saga (or hell) of a poet girl.
The second, on the surface, provides instruction on how to write a poem--but it also pulls a clever bait-and-switch by informing readers how to become a lesbian as well. Myles's exposition of "lesbianity," in fact, includes six pages of female genitalia that rival anything Henry Miller ever produced.
The third and final part of the book is a fictional proposal to a funding organization in which the author obliges the foundation's request to supply them with her career narrative, but instead of the tedious sanitized version, she offers a bluntly truthful one. Full of travel disasters, bad readings of wonderful poems, and death, this last section is Myles's Purgatorio--a litany chronicling the career of a poet and her writing life.
Myles's rebellious spirit is fully present here as she injects her signature blurring of memoir and fiction, poem and essay, to reinforce her status as one of America's most groundbreaking writers. This eagerly anticipated follow-up to her landmark Cool for You will not disappoint fans of Myles or of modern literature itself.
The first part of the story, mesmerizing readers with its ripple of memoir, tells the saga (or hell) of a poet girl.
The second, on the surface, provides instruction on how to write a poem--but it also pulls a clever bait-and-switch by informing readers how to become a lesbian as well. Myles's exposition of "lesbianity," in fact, includes six pages of female genitalia that rival anything Henry Miller ever produced.
The third and final part of the book is a fictional proposal to a funding organization in which the author obliges the foundation's request to supply them with her career narrative, but instead of the tedious sanitized version, she offers a bluntly truthful one. Full of travel disasters, bad readings of wonderful poems, and death, this last section is Myles's Purgatorio--a litany chronicling the career of a poet and her writing life.
Myles's rebellious spirit is fully present here as she injects her signature blurring of memoir and fiction, poem and essay, to reinforce her status as one of America's most groundbreaking writers. This eagerly anticipated follow-up to her landmark Cool for You will not disappoint fans of Myles or of modern literature itself.
271 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2008
266 people are currently reading
10637 people want to read
About the author
Eileen Myles
118 books1,067 followersEileen 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 355 reviews
October 13, 2010
i remember reading some kim gordon interview where she said rock and roll was paying to watch someone else be free. poetry is the same thing but no one pays and it's more personal and pure because, frankly, no one gives a fuck.
except. except.
this messy, score-settling, no-longer-pure-but-still pure memoir has some heft to it. both the heft of trying for decades worth of personal history and also like it was meant to be done right. unrushed. yet it also has myles' great openness, as if it really were just her notebook and its feverish post-event, post-break-up, post-reading heart pouring. which belies a carefully sloppy sequencing, rough stitches to let the air and light in. in fact one of the things i love most about her writing is how successfully she risks an unfinished surface.
a few large themes orient the work: the business and politics and capital of the 'poetry field,' what self-abuse seems necessary there; the ecstasies and agonies of sex, not relationships so much as the melancholic self-contemplations of the serious gigolo; the poem as valueless and therefore essential home and grave of it all.
on this last, she gives, near work's end, several guiding definitions:
"What I started to understand was that the poem was made out of time -- past, present and future. It lives in the present, it breathes there and that's how you let anyone in. I think people can feel this accessing of time in poetry very readily. As soon as the poem ceases to be about anything, when it even stops saving things, stops being such a damn collector, it becomes an invite to the only refuge which is the impossible moment of being alive. I lost her after a while, and of course she was never mine, I borrowed her and she borrowed me from our lives" (268).
and
"The room was the poem, the day I was in. Oh Christ. What writes my poem is a second ring, inner or outer. Poetry is just the performance of it. These little things, whether I write them or not. That's the score. The thing of great value is you. Where you are, glowing and fading, while you live" (270).
...also beautiful warnings throughout, like:
"Because rich people need poor friends (but not too poor!) to maintain their connection to the struggle that spawned them even if they never struggled. Poor people tend to know what's going on plus they are often good-looking, at least when they are young and even later they are the cool interesting people the rich person once slept with, so the poor person always feathers the nest of the rich. If something bad happens to the poor person, the rich person would help. Everyone knows that. An artist's responsibility for a very long time is to get collected, socially" (33).
and
"I was naturally going to a reading, I had some hot pink flyers in my bag of where I was going and they liked how I looked when I came in and by the time I left everyone was roaring and they really liked my outfit and the dinner people were coming and they were mostly art world and I was his and her young punk, a genius and for that I was fed and felt seen and went out a little loaded into the bright cold. We were carrying the message, day and night for about ten years. That's about as long as you get" (259).
except. except.
this messy, score-settling, no-longer-pure-but-still pure memoir has some heft to it. both the heft of trying for decades worth of personal history and also like it was meant to be done right. unrushed. yet it also has myles' great openness, as if it really were just her notebook and its feverish post-event, post-break-up, post-reading heart pouring. which belies a carefully sloppy sequencing, rough stitches to let the air and light in. in fact one of the things i love most about her writing is how successfully she risks an unfinished surface.
a few large themes orient the work: the business and politics and capital of the 'poetry field,' what self-abuse seems necessary there; the ecstasies and agonies of sex, not relationships so much as the melancholic self-contemplations of the serious gigolo; the poem as valueless and therefore essential home and grave of it all.
on this last, she gives, near work's end, several guiding definitions:
"What I started to understand was that the poem was made out of time -- past, present and future. It lives in the present, it breathes there and that's how you let anyone in. I think people can feel this accessing of time in poetry very readily. As soon as the poem ceases to be about anything, when it even stops saving things, stops being such a damn collector, it becomes an invite to the only refuge which is the impossible moment of being alive. I lost her after a while, and of course she was never mine, I borrowed her and she borrowed me from our lives" (268).
and
"The room was the poem, the day I was in. Oh Christ. What writes my poem is a second ring, inner or outer. Poetry is just the performance of it. These little things, whether I write them or not. That's the score. The thing of great value is you. Where you are, glowing and fading, while you live" (270).
...also beautiful warnings throughout, like:
"Because rich people need poor friends (but not too poor!) to maintain their connection to the struggle that spawned them even if they never struggled. Poor people tend to know what's going on plus they are often good-looking, at least when they are young and even later they are the cool interesting people the rich person once slept with, so the poor person always feathers the nest of the rich. If something bad happens to the poor person, the rich person would help. Everyone knows that. An artist's responsibility for a very long time is to get collected, socially" (33).
and
"I was naturally going to a reading, I had some hot pink flyers in my bag of where I was going and they liked how I looked when I came in and by the time I left everyone was roaring and they really liked my outfit and the dinner people were coming and they were mostly art world and I was his and her young punk, a genius and for that I was fed and felt seen and went out a little loaded into the bright cold. We were carrying the message, day and night for about ten years. That's about as long as you get" (259).
July 29, 2016
I quite liked this amorphic, slippery little book. Although it wobbled about with it's free-form structure lack-of-structure; it managed to never collapse under itself. It was like an engorged clit. Or a jellyfish on steroids. Slippery; because there's a good five to ten pages towards the end that are saturated with pussy; clits and labia, you'll know it when you hit it, hold on tight. There was one spectacular line elsewhere, "(...) and his pretty little asshole was like a bud when Rene found him and now it was stretched out like a scowl."
stretched out like a scowl. Sheer brilliance right there.
Eileen Myles is fascinating and I'm a little envious of her New York-drugs & dyke & poetry filled life. But that's what we have books for, right? To live vicariously through others; which I most certainly did in this fuck-however-a-memoir-is-supposed-to-be-written, THIS IS HOW I TELLS IT chunk of unconventional sentences and paragraphs. It took me ages to read (like a week, yo - I usually devour shit like this in hours so I'm in mourning for my attention span, begging for some ritalin; if a book filled with so much poetry and gay and drugs can't keep me focused, then I'm well and truly in dire straights.
You should watch her videos on youtube, she makes you want to take your clothes off in the hopes that she'll write about you one day too.
Pre-read; I read about this here.
stretched out like a scowl. Sheer brilliance right there.
Eileen Myles is fascinating and I'm a little envious of her New York-drugs & dyke & poetry filled life. But that's what we have books for, right? To live vicariously through others; which I most certainly did in this fuck-however-a-memoir-is-supposed-to-be-written, THIS IS HOW I TELLS IT chunk of unconventional sentences and paragraphs. It took me ages to read (like a week, yo - I usually devour shit like this in hours so I'm in mourning for my attention span, begging for some ritalin; if a book filled with so much poetry and gay and drugs can't keep me focused, then I'm well and truly in dire straights.
You should watch her videos on youtube, she makes you want to take your clothes off in the hopes that she'll write about you one day too.
Pre-read; I read about this here.
October 5, 2010
I reviewed this book for the Poetry Foundation and right now I have to stop fucking around with Goodreads and answer the factchecker's questions about my review. Anyway, spoiler I give it five stars. Eileen Myles is the god of you.
Read
December 18, 2010I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. The meandering narrative made it hard for me to put it down, but not necessarily in a good way. More of a this is making me anxious and I don't know where it's going so I can't stop kind of a way. Glad I read it though. Plus the last page really spoke to me. I have a hard time leaving parties too. Eileen Myles thinks a poem is like a party. I think a lot of things are like a party.
June 17, 2025
Writing is just what I do to frame my longing. I replace myself. The longer I live the deeper it goes. It seems it will never end this feeling. I throw a stone down and nothing ever comes up I don't even get circles.
Reading Eileen Myles’ staggering Inferno in the same month as Slow Days, Fast Company turned out to be a small stroke of genius on my part. They are somehow the perfect foil for each other, Myles’ grimy underground New York scene fuelled by amphetamines and self-loathing, the antithesis to the romanticized party girl ideal of sunshine and quaaludes in Babitz’s Los Angeles. Inferno is a genre bending dissection of poetry as a scene, as an art form, as an income source, while also a mid-life coming of age, a sexual awakening and pseudo-diary, and even on occasion a counter-culture gossip column. I loved the ways it played with form, at times revealing and vulnerable, at others holding the reader at arms length.
My first real exposure to Myles’ work, but it won’t be my last.
Reading Eileen Myles’ staggering Inferno in the same month as Slow Days, Fast Company turned out to be a small stroke of genius on my part. They are somehow the perfect foil for each other, Myles’ grimy underground New York scene fuelled by amphetamines and self-loathing, the antithesis to the romanticized party girl ideal of sunshine and quaaludes in Babitz’s Los Angeles. Inferno is a genre bending dissection of poetry as a scene, as an art form, as an income source, while also a mid-life coming of age, a sexual awakening and pseudo-diary, and even on occasion a counter-culture gossip column. I loved the ways it played with form, at times revealing and vulnerable, at others holding the reader at arms length.
My first real exposure to Myles’ work, but it won’t be my last.
July 29, 2018
I loved this book so much I'm not sure I can write an objective review. It was not just a book; for me, it was an experience.
Eileen Myles is a poet. She is gay and from a working class family in Boston. (Both of these facts are relevant to her writing, facts that are important to her and both influence and are contained in her poetry). This book is not a simple one to categorize (you can see how many shelves I put it on!). There is a lot of memoir, although she skips around chronologically and much of her memories are fragments that only sometimes come together later, just as real memories actually work. There are also poems. Myles also shares many insights into writing poetry that I found helpful in thinking about poetry, as well as reading and writing it. And a large part of her personal history overlaps with a history of New York City in the late 60s and the 70s.
So it's a complex work and fascinating on many levels. Myles' writes about the process she went through in discovering her sexuality. Some of her descriptions of her sex life are very graphic. Although I appreciated the vividness with which she portrayed her sexuality and relationships, giving a real sense of their beauty and the kind of intoxication she experience, I was sometimes a little uncomfortable. My failing, I think, not hers. But just a caution, of sorts. But this is only a small--although significant--part of the book.
Her descriptions of various poetry readings, movements, and poets were sometimes hilarious and always interesting, especially if you're at all interested in poetry and the life it has led. Her insights into the very nature of what poetry is and her writing process were of particular interest to me as a poet (or at least someone struggling to become one). I think that this would be of interest to anyone who care about poetry or, more generally, about writing and of art.
Myles' voice is distinctive: wry, passionate, critical. She is often harsh in her judgments, both of herself as well as of others. She is very much a part of the scene of which she is often critical but beneath her sometimes mocking tone, there is also a real respect and love of the people who struggle to create poems. Her descriptions of various poetry readings are sometimes very funny but it is clear that she went to many and must have found value there.
This is a book I wish I could memorize. There are so many wonderful insights and beautifully written sentences. I read a library copy of the book; I may buy one just so I can underline and hold on to more of her insights.
So if you like artists' memoirs, NYC history, poetry movements or writing, I strongly recommend this book. These are just some of the qualities this book possesses. A remarkable work. I'm very much looking forward to reading another of her memoirs, Chelsea Girls. I've also been reading her poetry which is, not surprisingly, powerful and often exciting.
Eileen Myles is a poet. She is gay and from a working class family in Boston. (Both of these facts are relevant to her writing, facts that are important to her and both influence and are contained in her poetry). This book is not a simple one to categorize (you can see how many shelves I put it on!). There is a lot of memoir, although she skips around chronologically and much of her memories are fragments that only sometimes come together later, just as real memories actually work. There are also poems. Myles also shares many insights into writing poetry that I found helpful in thinking about poetry, as well as reading and writing it. And a large part of her personal history overlaps with a history of New York City in the late 60s and the 70s.
So it's a complex work and fascinating on many levels. Myles' writes about the process she went through in discovering her sexuality. Some of her descriptions of her sex life are very graphic. Although I appreciated the vividness with which she portrayed her sexuality and relationships, giving a real sense of their beauty and the kind of intoxication she experience, I was sometimes a little uncomfortable. My failing, I think, not hers. But just a caution, of sorts. But this is only a small--although significant--part of the book.
Her descriptions of various poetry readings, movements, and poets were sometimes hilarious and always interesting, especially if you're at all interested in poetry and the life it has led. Her insights into the very nature of what poetry is and her writing process were of particular interest to me as a poet (or at least someone struggling to become one). I think that this would be of interest to anyone who care about poetry or, more generally, about writing and of art.
Myles' voice is distinctive: wry, passionate, critical. She is often harsh in her judgments, both of herself as well as of others. She is very much a part of the scene of which she is often critical but beneath her sometimes mocking tone, there is also a real respect and love of the people who struggle to create poems. Her descriptions of various poetry readings are sometimes very funny but it is clear that she went to many and must have found value there.
This is a book I wish I could memorize. There are so many wonderful insights and beautifully written sentences. I read a library copy of the book; I may buy one just so I can underline and hold on to more of her insights.
So if you like artists' memoirs, NYC history, poetry movements or writing, I strongly recommend this book. These are just some of the qualities this book possesses. A remarkable work. I'm very much looking forward to reading another of her memoirs, Chelsea Girls. I've also been reading her poetry which is, not surprisingly, powerful and often exciting.
March 28, 2012
I had to read this for class, and of all the assigned novels it was the one I most expected to like. But it's the one I like the least.
It's not fiction, for starters, and that bugs me in a class for writing fiction. The author is a poet and it's the story of her poetic life. I am not that literary a writer. I am not overly-enamored of literary events. Just the same way I suppose I prefer musicals to straight plays; I am easily bored.
This book has a very long chapter detailing readings the author was part of in the 1970s. I guess she's probably a good poet and all that; I'm not sure just how one judges poetry and mostly it goes over my head or something and I think "wow, that's it?"
The book's timeline is a bit awkward to follow; several times I didn't know what Myles was talking about: when was this? where were you? What the hell is going on here?
The novel jumps, it incorporates poetry into the narrative, which seems a bit pretentious, but I guess it makes sense since she is a poet. I thought the lesbian perspective would make me really love this book, but it doesn't. There are parts of it that I can definitely and do relate to.
The tone of the book is very strange, too; the writing is at times very compelling and highly readable but at the same time it sounds almost as if it's being written by someone with a very low mental capacity. Or someone who's about fourteen years old. It's hard to explain unless you pick it up and read a bit of it, but that's the impression I am left with. Boring, annoying and rather pretentious. I'm really sorry to say it. I had expected so much better.
It's not fiction, for starters, and that bugs me in a class for writing fiction. The author is a poet and it's the story of her poetic life. I am not that literary a writer. I am not overly-enamored of literary events. Just the same way I suppose I prefer musicals to straight plays; I am easily bored.
This book has a very long chapter detailing readings the author was part of in the 1970s. I guess she's probably a good poet and all that; I'm not sure just how one judges poetry and mostly it goes over my head or something and I think "wow, that's it?"
The book's timeline is a bit awkward to follow; several times I didn't know what Myles was talking about: when was this? where were you? What the hell is going on here?
The novel jumps, it incorporates poetry into the narrative, which seems a bit pretentious, but I guess it makes sense since she is a poet. I thought the lesbian perspective would make me really love this book, but it doesn't. There are parts of it that I can definitely and do relate to.
The tone of the book is very strange, too; the writing is at times very compelling and highly readable but at the same time it sounds almost as if it's being written by someone with a very low mental capacity. Or someone who's about fourteen years old. It's hard to explain unless you pick it up and read a bit of it, but that's the impression I am left with. Boring, annoying and rather pretentious. I'm really sorry to say it. I had expected so much better.
December 19, 2011
The subtitle "A Poet's Novel" makes me wonder what makes it different from say, "a novelist's novel" or "an artist's novel." Is it the gonzo approach to grammar, flow, story, and dialogue? Hmmm. Maybe that's it. Myles plays/writes using her own rules. If I were her editor I think my head would explode (after about 20 pages, I probably would realize: Oh, this is art. This is uneditable. This is freaking Eileen Myles!).
I like how this is essentially a memoir with the N-word ("novel") attached to it, like some kind of disclaimer that she might be playing with you at times. I also really like the snarkiness of Myles's voice. It's pretty damn funny at times, not to mention endlessly quotable.
I like how this is essentially a memoir with the N-word ("novel") attached to it, like some kind of disclaimer that she might be playing with you at times. I also really like the snarkiness of Myles's voice. It's pretty damn funny at times, not to mention endlessly quotable.
January 28, 2016
One of those books that I highlight until the pages become watercolor paintings. A dreamy winding account of the author's young adulthood with vivid flashes of lucid existential clarity. Lulled me into amused complacent spectatorship only to knock me off my feet into a chasm of truth again and again.
September 3, 2013
I read this because I heard it had a lot of sex in it, and due to some kind of error the publisher sent it to me for free. Other times I tried to read Eileen Myles I couldn't get past the feeling that she was full of it in the bad way, but in this book she seemed more sympathetic because there are parts about being young and not knowing a lot, and there is that great line about being an old crappy dyke with half a brain leaking a book. There wasn't as much sex as I was hoping but still some pretty good parts. Lots of it was true in the way that you know things are true but you feel like you aren't allowed to say it like maybe it is embarrassing but she just says it.
August 26, 2022
was thinking this was a 3/5 all the way til the last section where it wrapped up so beautifully and everything fell into place
March 27, 2011
"Everything was pathetic and it wouldn't stop. I'm a mess. And I could show how that looked. I resigned myself to continuous movement. Like I'm drawing. Like if there is "a form" it exists independent of me, or else I'm complicit in it. I'm wandering in it. Underlining. Changing horses all the time. And each decision left a mark.
And I lay there in the hot New York night writing my poem to Alice, to Susie, to everyone I knew--about being--not in literature, not in relation to some historical form, or even art. I'm alive in life and I'm...walking its dog. Some profound creaturliness was guiding me. I began to understand a poem as a performance of that. I looked out the window. And it loved me. Everything went wiggle-wiggle." (214-5)
And I lay there in the hot New York night writing my poem to Alice, to Susie, to everyone I knew--about being--not in literature, not in relation to some historical form, or even art. I'm alive in life and I'm...walking its dog. Some profound creaturliness was guiding me. I began to understand a poem as a performance of that. I looked out the window. And it loved me. Everything went wiggle-wiggle." (214-5)
February 15, 2016
I don't want to say too much because I want you to read it. I will say it Has a Part at the End. When I was done reading the Part I closed the book and hit it five times against the wall. It damn near killed me. You will see.
RIP Lola
1986-2010
"Myles, Eileen. Inferno: A Poet's Novel. (2010) pp228-236"
RIP Lola
1986-2010
"Myles, Eileen. Inferno: A Poet's Novel. (2010) pp228-236"
June 26, 2020
eileen is a rascal
June 5, 2021
poetry helped us grow up, poetry is the world. eileen has such affection for writing, but also knows writing just *is*. "it's boring. it happened to us." and poetry started the american culture wars. and poetry made us realize we're queers. this is a community book of poets hanging out in kitchens, talking. and subsequently, there's a lot of lesbian sex and passionate obsession. also collective memory, misbehaving at readings, and walking towards a volcano late at night, for hours. "a poet is a person with a very short attention span who actually decides to study it. to look. to draw that short thing out." "writing is just what i do to frame my longing. i replace myself. the longer i live the deeper it goes. it seems it will never end this feeling."
June 2, 2022
не всегда было понятно, зачем я продолжаю читать эту книгу, но потом попадались отдельные страницы и идеи, ради которых стоило управиться с остальными. вот, например:
"самая большая ценность — это ты. где ты, светишься и гаснешь, пока живешь."
"самая большая ценность — это ты. где ты, светишься и гаснешь, пока живешь."
January 6, 2023
AT LAST
February 5, 2015
this is such a good read for a time in my life where I am trying to figure out how to be a poet. here are some quotations I like from it about poetry so I can save them and also return this to the library because it's due tomorrow:
p. 52: "Poetry readings were like early teevee in that everyone had their own little show. Though teevee got more sophisticated (worse) poetry never did. It remains stupid, run by fools. It's the only way to hold it open."
p. 108: "I mean and I would definitely say poetry is a very roundabout way to unite both work and time. A poet is a person with a very short attention span who actually decides to study it. To look. To draw that short thing out."
p. 224 (a comparison to Hart Crane) "There's one picture of me when I was thirteen sitting with my friends and I was doing it. Looking through the camera, back at myself but pleased. Usually the other people in the picture actually seem to be in the world. They're stopping the balloon from floating off."
(and I think I marked this because it resembles my favorite line in Wittgenstein's Mistress: "All that looking compressed in a poem."
p. 261: "The poem was a grid– that swayed and moving through it you just picked up things and hung them on the grid all the while singing your broken heart out. Humming. It was a deep deep grey. In that place (and poetry most of all is a mastery of places, not the world but the weather of the states that form in your life and what you read and how things were taken and what came back) each of these series of occurrences creates a season. The seasons grow huge (til they die) and in each you create a new sense of what the poem is in relation to the space of your mind, heart, that kind of substance."
p. 52: "Poetry readings were like early teevee in that everyone had their own little show. Though teevee got more sophisticated (worse) poetry never did. It remains stupid, run by fools. It's the only way to hold it open."
p. 108: "I mean and I would definitely say poetry is a very roundabout way to unite both work and time. A poet is a person with a very short attention span who actually decides to study it. To look. To draw that short thing out."
p. 224 (a comparison to Hart Crane) "There's one picture of me when I was thirteen sitting with my friends and I was doing it. Looking through the camera, back at myself but pleased. Usually the other people in the picture actually seem to be in the world. They're stopping the balloon from floating off."
(and I think I marked this because it resembles my favorite line in Wittgenstein's Mistress: "All that looking compressed in a poem."
p. 261: "The poem was a grid– that swayed and moving through it you just picked up things and hung them on the grid all the while singing your broken heart out. Humming. It was a deep deep grey. In that place (and poetry most of all is a mastery of places, not the world but the weather of the states that form in your life and what you read and how things were taken and what came back) each of these series of occurrences creates a season. The seasons grow huge (til they die) and in each you create a new sense of what the poem is in relation to the space of your mind, heart, that kind of substance."
February 7, 2016
Myles, a likable guide, leads readers on a tour of the NYC's downtown poetry/art scene of the '70s & '80s. Unlike Dante's inferno, Manhattan's inferno is more heavenly than hellish, a place where artists can afford to live and hang out with other artists producing art! Thanks to Myles' wild use of language I often had no idea what she was talking about, but nearly as often she illuminated tiny slivers of reality with both perceptive brilliance and beauty.
February 15, 2025
kind of a slog
September 1, 2023
Ok I mean obviously you have to take my review with a grain of salt because there’s no way I wouldn’t give this book 5 stars because it’s just everything that I love about books. And I’m not even saying that because of the poetry world connections, it’s just like non-linear, memoir-esque stuff with no plot and a few interesting formal devices with always get my full approval. BUT really I’m here to talk about how I think this is THE NEW YORK NOVEL for me. Like it just NAILS being like a young sort of creative person in nyc in this way that’s so so so good and relatable and inspiring but really it’s just like, yes—that is IT!! Just like the sort of sprawling sense of purpose and time matched with the intensity of work and financial fear and the venues that are always closing and the beers and the trying to do work work always and the “cool” people and social drama and trips outside the city and the random stuff at people’s apartments. And it’s interesting especially because there’s a point where they clearly like have become more famous (given what they’re doing and who they’re hanging with) but it’s also never like there’s some point where they “make it” either. It’s just like life keeps happening and going on and there’s all this stuff. Also of course super interesting to hear about gay and lesbian culture in this moment that is not that long ago and very much informs where we’re at, but is also different in many ways.
Read
January 12, 2024Unlike any book I’ve read. Meanders as hazy and abstract memoir/stream-of-consciousness that occasionally explodes with clarity (mostly about sex, where I think Inferno is at its sharpest and strongest). It was challenging for me in its freedom - of form, of style, liberated from the conventional use of commas - which makes it read as sort of frantic and breathless (perhaps all the drugs have something to do with this), but I now quite admire Myers’s singular voice, having made it through. This book convinced me I am not cut out to be a poet, a lesbian, or a resident of New York.
My favorite G rated bit:
“poetry most of all is a mastery of places, not the world but the weather of the states that form in your life and what you read and how things were taken and what came back”
My favorite G rated bit:
“poetry most of all is a mastery of places, not the world but the weather of the states that form in your life and what you read and how things were taken and what came back”
June 6, 2018
"I borrowed her and she borrowed me from our lives."
thanks for letting me borrow ur life for a bit too...everyone should borrow eileen's life / inferno just saying...
thanks for letting me borrow ur life for a bit too...everyone should borrow eileen's life / inferno just saying...
July 4, 2022
Let yourself get into the groove of this book. At first, you’re going to feel some friction, but don’t try to make sense of it. Just let it pass. Let Eileen work their magic. Midway through you’ll be dancing with every word they give you and maybe even belching up some of your own.
July 17, 2022
“Детство - это когда ты вечно не можешь заснуть, а завтра никогда тебе не принадлежит. Ты встаёшь утром, чтобы делать ещё что-то, что придумали для тебя взрослые.”
October 26, 2025
Mmhmhmhmm feeling mixed emotions here…… the last chapter was exactly why I love Eileen but I missed for the most part of the book. Let me think
September 29, 2024
dnf after ~130 pages. too pretentious for me and not what i need to read right now!
August 22, 2022
Transformative, funny, self-aware, pretentious in the best way, tough, intimate, uninhibited….I could literally go on forever. Words in their purest and lesbian-est form. Allows you to feel the art of poetry and of being queer from the inside.
Almost hard to read because it expresses many facets of identity that I also experience.
Almost hard to read because it expresses many facets of identity that I also experience.
April 26, 2025
Read this on a 2 hour train trip on New Years Morning..... ominous
August 6, 2023
after finishing this book, i would like to shout from the rooftops that i’d rather read eileen myles than dante any day. that’s not to say that she’s perfect- there was a lot i didn’t love about inferno. but the personal connection i felt with the author after finishing this book will stay with me through every other novel i read.
i don’t think any line has stuck with me as much as “it was ours now. i would show her my hell.” that little sentence, lost among the sea that contains this blazing mess, can mean so many things and yet nothing at all. water always quells fire, or so they say, but that fire must be swept up in an ocean or it will burn for eternity. that was certainly not the most impactful sentence in the book, nor was it the most creative or well-written, but from the moment i read it, i knew i was being shown eileen myles’ personal hell. hell curates just for me, the reader. her hell. this is how a memoir shouldn’t be written- but it’s absolutely how myles’ should’ve been. she brings you along with her through chaos and disorder and love and pain, and sprinkles in a fair share of drugs for you to try out as you go. it’s messy, it’s disorienting, but it always holds itself together, wonderfully, i may add. this entire book is getting lost in a hazy embrace. it’s a film scene made from words. it’s not quite a novel, it’s not quite a poem, it’s a poet’s novel and a beautiful one at that. it reminds me most of a vignette, one extended across pages i never wanted to end, pages i found myself sucked into and thinking about at all hours of the night. this book is an offering, an invitation into eileen myles’ stream of consciousness, her thoughts that were once ink from a pentel pen on a yellow legal pad painted or printed onto six inches of white paper in front of me. this book builds a library inside you, like the arlington library, which looks like a bank, this book gives you a word bank to fill in or cross out as you read. that’s a horrible line- i absolutely hate the way i wrote that, but i’m not writing poetry, i’m writing a book review, and it can be whatever it wants to be. you find a word you’re searching for- for me, it was poetry, because every time it came up, i felt relieved. as if i could cross it off of my list. it was what i searched for in this novel, the meaning of poetry, how to write poetry, how to discover poetry, and i loved seeing that word. each word, especially one you’ve banked, gives you a space to escape, both physical and in your mind, and brings you into myles’ mind with it. she’s incredibly forward, incredibly descriptive, and yet so relatable. myles’ description of the electricity of boredom, the wanting of conversation, bodies, people to be with and be around- it’s all so raw and real and yet packaged in such a normal, digestible manner. “the material of poems is energy itself, not even language.” this book isn’t even energy, it’s space. it’s space for the reader to hide and find solace in words they probably can’t grasp the true meaning of, and space for the author to express those thoughts on a page without anyone to tell them they’re wrong. these thoughts are so valid that you might not believe them. they’re myles’ truth, their world, their space. they’re an entire universe burnt to a crisp and yet still in flames, because this matter cannot be destroyed and it is one that must be discussed. it’s something that doesn’t quite make sense but at the same time can be held and crushed in a closed fist, something that is abundantly clear and yet fogs up all that you can see for miles. it’s research- myles loves research. research on the self and what that really means, studying the very definition of our humanity through the eyes of society’s supposed outcasts. i believe that poets will understand our world better than anyone who studies it for their entire lifetime, because poets spend that time living it, writing the stories that a researcher may or may not come across- but at least they have put it on a page. this poem, this novel, this poet’s novel- it is an inferno, burning, destroying, and leaving space for renewal. it’s somewhat voyeuristic, this exposure into myles’ thoughts, and i can’t help but feel as if i am in on a big secret as the reader who just gets to sit back and watch her life unfold from the six inches of paper and ink in front of my face. to quote myles, “this proposal is a guidebook; it follows the utter singularity of [her] writing career. the shape [her] writing forces you through.”literature is boring sometimes. poetry is boring sometimes. but this, this little rectangle of thoughts and ramblings and ideas, this is invigorating. writing never rots, and hers will stay with me long after we’re both gone.
after all of that, though, it’s time for somewhat of an actual review. i loved the rawness, the reality, and the truth that this book held. however, i couldn’t help but find it draining at a certain point. all of the other people she mentioned began to feel the same to me, and suddenly i couldn’t tell you who alice was compared to eden, who helene was compared to kathy. the story seemed to go on in a seemingly endless loop- she reads a poem, somebody likes it, somebody hates it. she meets a famous poet or someone slightly less famous and something happens, sometimes sexual, sometimes platonic. she tells a story with description i could truly never find elsewhere, with chaos that shook me to my core, but the story itself becomes too dull for the description to compensate for. this was a wonderfully weird book, a collection of ramblings that were shockingly challenging to put down, but i felt tired by the end. it’s all too familiar after the hundredth page or so, and the plotline that sucked me in becomes more of a marathon than a sprint. i’m not saying that every book i read must be fast-paced or contain a chronological order, but inferno just felt redundant. they’re all poets and politicians and alcoholics and they all live together because that’s the way poets and politicians and alcoholics spend their time. that was the message i took away from probably the last two hundred pages of this story. i don’t think i would read it again, though i’d like to keep it on my shelf. i’d like to be able to flip through it when i need inspiration, to have access to her own hell of poetry that i bought for $6.99 plus tax.
to cap off the review portion of this incoherent mess of paragraphs, i’d like to note that her process of self-discovery- through not only her sexuality, but her writing, as well- it was the part of this story that spoke to me the most. if nothing else, i resonated with the road to finding yourself. there was little else i related to, but not every story has to be an introspective map of your being- this felt more like a path i could follow than a guide to do so. and i loved that.
this is certainly not my best review. it goes from adoring to aggressive, it contains a lot of filler that i think sounds poetic but likely comes off as annoying to a reader who just wants to hear about the book itself, and it doesn’t provide any real explanation for my rating itself. nonetheless, i believe that my all-over-the-place, semi-incoherent review perfectly fits what i found within these six inches of paper and ink and a beautiful mind immortalized forever. so many different thoughts and lives and realities walking side by side and none of them will ever touch. this review is one of those thoughts and realities that will likely sit here in cyberspace and rarely interact with anything but the other thoughts just like it. it doesn’t make much sense, it being this review, it being inferno. i love it a whole lot and i hate it just a little bit. what even makes good poetry? is this good poetry? i don’t know what it is. i don’t have the authority to tell you. it’s something that i don’t think deserves to be judged, purely because it is real. if you’re going to judge eileen myles’ inferno, read it first. to read this is to live forever within the bounds of poetry, literature, and love. just give it a try! i can promise you one thing: it’s more enjoyable than dante.
also, i loved the ending.
i don’t think any line has stuck with me as much as “it was ours now. i would show her my hell.” that little sentence, lost among the sea that contains this blazing mess, can mean so many things and yet nothing at all. water always quells fire, or so they say, but that fire must be swept up in an ocean or it will burn for eternity. that was certainly not the most impactful sentence in the book, nor was it the most creative or well-written, but from the moment i read it, i knew i was being shown eileen myles’ personal hell. hell curates just for me, the reader. her hell. this is how a memoir shouldn’t be written- but it’s absolutely how myles’ should’ve been. she brings you along with her through chaos and disorder and love and pain, and sprinkles in a fair share of drugs for you to try out as you go. it’s messy, it’s disorienting, but it always holds itself together, wonderfully, i may add. this entire book is getting lost in a hazy embrace. it’s a film scene made from words. it’s not quite a novel, it’s not quite a poem, it’s a poet’s novel and a beautiful one at that. it reminds me most of a vignette, one extended across pages i never wanted to end, pages i found myself sucked into and thinking about at all hours of the night. this book is an offering, an invitation into eileen myles’ stream of consciousness, her thoughts that were once ink from a pentel pen on a yellow legal pad painted or printed onto six inches of white paper in front of me. this book builds a library inside you, like the arlington library, which looks like a bank, this book gives you a word bank to fill in or cross out as you read. that’s a horrible line- i absolutely hate the way i wrote that, but i’m not writing poetry, i’m writing a book review, and it can be whatever it wants to be. you find a word you’re searching for- for me, it was poetry, because every time it came up, i felt relieved. as if i could cross it off of my list. it was what i searched for in this novel, the meaning of poetry, how to write poetry, how to discover poetry, and i loved seeing that word. each word, especially one you’ve banked, gives you a space to escape, both physical and in your mind, and brings you into myles’ mind with it. she’s incredibly forward, incredibly descriptive, and yet so relatable. myles’ description of the electricity of boredom, the wanting of conversation, bodies, people to be with and be around- it’s all so raw and real and yet packaged in such a normal, digestible manner. “the material of poems is energy itself, not even language.” this book isn’t even energy, it’s space. it’s space for the reader to hide and find solace in words they probably can’t grasp the true meaning of, and space for the author to express those thoughts on a page without anyone to tell them they’re wrong. these thoughts are so valid that you might not believe them. they’re myles’ truth, their world, their space. they’re an entire universe burnt to a crisp and yet still in flames, because this matter cannot be destroyed and it is one that must be discussed. it’s something that doesn’t quite make sense but at the same time can be held and crushed in a closed fist, something that is abundantly clear and yet fogs up all that you can see for miles. it’s research- myles loves research. research on the self and what that really means, studying the very definition of our humanity through the eyes of society’s supposed outcasts. i believe that poets will understand our world better than anyone who studies it for their entire lifetime, because poets spend that time living it, writing the stories that a researcher may or may not come across- but at least they have put it on a page. this poem, this novel, this poet’s novel- it is an inferno, burning, destroying, and leaving space for renewal. it’s somewhat voyeuristic, this exposure into myles’ thoughts, and i can’t help but feel as if i am in on a big secret as the reader who just gets to sit back and watch her life unfold from the six inches of paper and ink in front of my face. to quote myles, “this proposal is a guidebook; it follows the utter singularity of [her] writing career. the shape [her] writing forces you through.”literature is boring sometimes. poetry is boring sometimes. but this, this little rectangle of thoughts and ramblings and ideas, this is invigorating. writing never rots, and hers will stay with me long after we’re both gone.
after all of that, though, it’s time for somewhat of an actual review. i loved the rawness, the reality, and the truth that this book held. however, i couldn’t help but find it draining at a certain point. all of the other people she mentioned began to feel the same to me, and suddenly i couldn’t tell you who alice was compared to eden, who helene was compared to kathy. the story seemed to go on in a seemingly endless loop- she reads a poem, somebody likes it, somebody hates it. she meets a famous poet or someone slightly less famous and something happens, sometimes sexual, sometimes platonic. she tells a story with description i could truly never find elsewhere, with chaos that shook me to my core, but the story itself becomes too dull for the description to compensate for. this was a wonderfully weird book, a collection of ramblings that were shockingly challenging to put down, but i felt tired by the end. it’s all too familiar after the hundredth page or so, and the plotline that sucked me in becomes more of a marathon than a sprint. i’m not saying that every book i read must be fast-paced or contain a chronological order, but inferno just felt redundant. they’re all poets and politicians and alcoholics and they all live together because that’s the way poets and politicians and alcoholics spend their time. that was the message i took away from probably the last two hundred pages of this story. i don’t think i would read it again, though i’d like to keep it on my shelf. i’d like to be able to flip through it when i need inspiration, to have access to her own hell of poetry that i bought for $6.99 plus tax.
to cap off the review portion of this incoherent mess of paragraphs, i’d like to note that her process of self-discovery- through not only her sexuality, but her writing, as well- it was the part of this story that spoke to me the most. if nothing else, i resonated with the road to finding yourself. there was little else i related to, but not every story has to be an introspective map of your being- this felt more like a path i could follow than a guide to do so. and i loved that.
this is certainly not my best review. it goes from adoring to aggressive, it contains a lot of filler that i think sounds poetic but likely comes off as annoying to a reader who just wants to hear about the book itself, and it doesn’t provide any real explanation for my rating itself. nonetheless, i believe that my all-over-the-place, semi-incoherent review perfectly fits what i found within these six inches of paper and ink and a beautiful mind immortalized forever. so many different thoughts and lives and realities walking side by side and none of them will ever touch. this review is one of those thoughts and realities that will likely sit here in cyberspace and rarely interact with anything but the other thoughts just like it. it doesn’t make much sense, it being this review, it being inferno. i love it a whole lot and i hate it just a little bit. what even makes good poetry? is this good poetry? i don’t know what it is. i don’t have the authority to tell you. it’s something that i don’t think deserves to be judged, purely because it is real. if you’re going to judge eileen myles’ inferno, read it first. to read this is to live forever within the bounds of poetry, literature, and love. just give it a try! i can promise you one thing: it’s more enjoyable than dante.
also, i loved the ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 355 reviews