Afterglow (a Dog Memoir) by Eileen Myles

Afterglow (a Dog Memoir) by Eileen Myles

"A ravishingly strange and gorgeous book about a dog that's really about life and everything there is...astonishing." --Helen Macdonald, New York Times-bestselling author of H Is for Hawk

In 1990, poet Eileen Myles chose Rosie from a litter of pit bulls on the street, and their connection instantly became central to the writer's life and work. During the course of their sixteen years together, Myles was madly devoted to the dog's well-being, especially in her final days. Starting from the emptiness following Rosie's death, Afterglow launches a heartfelt and fabulist investigation into the true nature of the bond between pet and pet owner. Through this lens, we witness Myles's experiences with intimacy and spirituality, celebrity and politics, alcoholism and recovery, fathers and family history, as well as the fantastical myths we spin to get to the heart of grief.

Moving from an imaginary talk show where Rosie is interviewed by Myles's childhood puppet to a critical reenactment of the night Rosie mated with another pit bull, from lyrical transcriptions of their walks to Rosie's enlightened narration from the afterlife, Afterglow illuminates all that it can mean when we dedicate our existence to a dog.

"Myles gets at something no other dog book I've read has gotten at quite this distinctly: The sense of wordless connection and spiritual expansion you feel when you love and are loved by a creature who's not human...raw and affecting." --Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR

Eileen Myles was born in Cambridge, Mass. in 1949, was educated in catholic schools, graduated from U. Mass. (Boston) in 1971, and moved to New York City in 1974 to be a poet. She quickly became part of the reading, publishing, and performance scene in the East Village, editing dodgems in the late '70s and becoming part of the community of St. Mark's Poetry Project where she studied and was friends with Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Paul Violi, and Bill Zavatsky. In 1979, she was assistant to poet James Schuyler. She was Artistic Director of the Poetry Project, 1984-86. Myles is a vivid interpreter of her own work and travels widely in the US and Canada and internationally giving readings and performances. In 2007, she published Sorry, Tree (Wave Books), the latest of more than a dozen volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction including Chelsea Girls, Not Me, Skies, The New Fuck You/adventures in lesbian reading, Cool for You, and The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art. Her most recent book is Inferno (A Poet's Novel) published by OR books. A new book of poems, Snowflake / different streets, will be published by Wave Books in 2011. She wrote the libretto for Hell, an opera with music composed by Michael Webster, which was performed on both coasts, 2004-2006. In 2007, she received The Warhol/Creative Capital art writers' grant. In 2010, the Poetry Society of America gave her the Shelley Memorial Award. She contributes to a wide number of publications including ArtForum, Bookforum, Parkett, and The Believer. She's a Prof. Emeritus at UC San Diego where she taught for five years. She lives in New York.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780802127099
ISBN 10	0802127096
Title	Afterglow (a Dog Memoir)
Author	Eileen Myles
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Black Cat
Year published	2017-09-12
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.