From "one of the essential voices in American poetry" (New
York Times) comes a rich new collection of expansive, light-footed,
and cheerfully foreboding poems oddly in tune with our strange and
evolving presentThe first new collection since Evolution from the
prolific poet, activist, and writer Eileen Myles, a "Working
Life" unerringly captures the measure of life. Whether alone
or in relationship, on city sidewalks or in the country, their lyrics
always engage with permanence and mortality, danger and safety, fear
and wonder.a "Working Life" is a book transfixed by
the everyday: the "sweet accumulation" of birds outside a
window, a cup of coffee and a slice of pizza, a lover's foot on the
bed. These poems arise in the close quarters of air travel, the
flashing of a landscape through a train window, or simply in a truck
tooling around town, or on foot with a dog in all the places that
held us during the pandemic lockdowns. Myles's lines unabashedly sing
the happy contradictions of love and sex, spill over with warnings
about the not-so future world threatened by climate change and
capitalism, and also find transcendent wonder in the landscapes and
animals around us, and in the solitary and collective act of caring
for one another and our world.With intelligence, heart, and singular
vision, a "Working Life" shows Eileen Myles working
at a thrilling new pitch of their poetic and philosophical powers.