Eileen Myles

In my family, I'm the middle of three, and I'm like a lot of middle children. I was one of those kids that floated from group to group. I liked being able to be included in all the groups - the bad kids, the smart kids. ”

I was like the family clown. The middle child entertaining. I was a lousy student, but interestingly, the nuns always let me write plays or do drawings, endless special projects. ”

The only job that ever really worked for me was teaching because you are your own master once you get into the room. You just have to show up on time and talk about what you care about. ”

As a human being, I'm kind of a cheery melancholic. I have energy; I'm happy. ”

Weirdly, the past starts to be about something else. It becomes about style in a way that it wasn't about, and I don't mean writing style, but cultural style. ”

The most exciting thing is to read a poem out loud for the first time. ”

Poetry from the bottom up is an act of selection: you kind of feel your way through the crowds of poems. The good ones came forward a long time ago, and the bad ones fell away. ”

With Instagram, you're captioning a moment. Twitter is the caption without the image. Even if it's there, the words come first. ”

I wake up with a sense of wonder. I don't dread the future. I like it. ”

Evolution is not an even process. There are surges, and there are micromoments. Certainly a career as an artist is that way. ”