The first all-new collection of poems since 2011’s Snowflake/different streets—and following the critically acclaimed Afterglow (a dog memoir), as well as the volume of selected poems, I Must Be Living Twice—here, in Evolution, we find the eminent, exuberant writer at the forefront of American literature, upending genre in a new vernacular that enacts—like nobody else—the way we speak (inside and out) today. Evolution, with its channeling of Quakers, Fresca, and cell phones, radiates vital insight, purpose, and risk, like in these opening lines of the title poem:

Something
unearthly
about
today
so I buy
a Diet Coke &
a newspaper
a version of “me”
something
about me on the
earth & its sneakers
& feeling like
the earth’s furniture
but that can’t be
true or like
the coke & the Times
it’s true for a little
while.

Praise for Evolution

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection

“In Eileen Myles’s newest book of poetry, Evolution, we encounter an arrival, a voice always becoming, unpinnable and queer. Myles’s new poems are transformations, and perhaps a culmination of the poet’s previous inquiries into love, gender, poetry, America, and its politics . . . The form of Myles’s work rivals its subject matter in intimacy. The lines in Evolution are physical, a body unleashed but not yet comfortable and not without fear. The short lines rush down the page, movement as touch, touch as freedom.”—Natalie Diaz, New York Times Book Review

“Lopes forward in the strutting style of the witnessing and sincere, but gorgeously nonaustere, poet in New York . . . The gift of Evolution is its bold depiction of the textually-rendered ‘I’-Eileen.”—Kenyon Review

“Evolution, Eileen Myles’s first all-new collection of poetry since 2011, circles back to classic themes such as their love of dogs, loneliness, and parental loss. These poems, however, are also immediate and pressingly contemporary. Myles is conducting an intimate exchange with the government, peering into their computer and saying hello to whoever might be surveilling them.”—Lambda Literary

“Myles relentlessly questions, analyzes, and even loathes the self, combining fanciful reveries with non sequitur in the New York School style . . . Effectively brings vague feelings into sharp relief with surprising imagery and lighter moments of mockery reveal the contradictions in human behavior . . . Myles has long excelled at capturing outsiderness, and feelings of being lost and misunderstood are plenty evident here.”—Publishers Weekly

“Rich in vernacular and innovative line breaks, these poems ask to be read out loud . . . Myles crafts poems of a personal nature in Evolution. In very short lines, they are also reflective, contemporary, political, erotic and even aphoristic . . . In a bold collection of poems, Eileen Myles reinforces their justifiable fame as the unabashed voice of what’s left of New York’s downtown edginess.”—Shelf Awareness

“Chicken soup for the queer soul. Eileen Myles is THE queer poet. Ruminative essays sprinkled amongst heart wrenching poetry that makes you think and think and revisit and masticate and still there’s more. The magic of Myles is that they’re real. Every poem, every sentence is real pain, real passion, real love, through some of the most impressive command of language—sometimes it feels like Eileen Myles is the only one who speaks English and that it must be my second language because I could spend my whole life crafting semantics to capture emotion and it wouldn’t come close to theirs. All this and a political lens that is mourning, defiant, strong, and as close to 20/20 as it gets. Thank you Eileen Myles for being such a huge part of making it possible for me to use they/them pronouns, to exist as a queer person in this world. I want a goddamn dyke for president.” —Ashley Tomaszewski, Literati Bookstore

Praise for Afterglow (a dog memoir)

“A mutt elegy in a million . . . 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.”—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR

“Playful, heartfelt, wise, compassionate, fantastical and audaciously confessional.”—New York Times Book Review

“A wry, gorgeous, psychedelic effort to plumb the subject of dog-human partnership . . . Afterglow is like the Just Kids of dog books.”—New Yorker

“Cosmic, and charming . . . far-flung, and wonderfully loving.”—Boston Globe

“An ever-deepening investigation into the nature of human-being-ness, self-knowledge, and knowing things outside of yourself.”—Bookforum

“Part elegy, part meditation . . . poignant, sweeping.”—O Magazine

“Fantastical . . . wrenching.”—Rolling Stone

“[An] exquisite slapstick tragedy . . . a radical memoir.” —Village Voice

“Tender, lyrical.” —Buzzfeed

“Gritty, naturalistic . . . like a good grunge song.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“Extraordinary . . . brings language to the nonverbal intimacy of a human life lived with a dog.” —Literary Hub

“Wild and unruly . . . lively, conversational, and highly intelligent.” —Vice

“A perfect example of what happens when you mix raw language with emotion, pets with loss, and sexuality with socioculturalism.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A rare new breed of dog memoir; think Patti Smith’s Just Kids, not Josh Grogan’s Marley and Me, absinthe not saccharine.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Poetic, heartrending, soothing, and funny.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Myles depicts the raw pathos of loss with keen insight.”—Publishers Weekly