Eileen Myles

The thing about not being historically a mainstream writer is that everyone feels like you're theirs: you're their friend. ”

I've grown to love Barack Obama. Hillary is no Bernie Sanders. But she's a politician, and she understands Congress. And I think with that kind of twisted beauty, she could lead our country. ”

Fred Moten is a poet I really love because he changes who is telling the poem all the time. ”

Dogs are a companion species. It's about time - you have an animal for about 15, 16 years, a generation. That time holds so much. You might have had five or six relationships with human beings but one dog. ”

When we have relationships with animals, we often make up who they are. ”

Poetry and novels are lists of our devotions. We love the feel of making the marks as the feelings are rising and falling. ”

Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us. ”

To be a poet, it's a challenge to do it in poverty, to do it in wealth. To do it in the academy, to do it in a relationship where you're happy. Everything changes the game. To do it in the awkward state of love, despair, dying. You just have to work it. ”

When somebody's in love with you, they think it's amazing you've written them a poem, and when they don't love you anymore, they hate those poems. They wish those poems would go away. ”

I really just love reading. It's my favorite thing, performing my poems live. Reading by reading, I just kind of follow my nose. ”