Poetry is my politics. It's an opportunity that gives me a way to speak.

Part of the glamour of being a poet was always this long reach into the future. You knew you were managing time.

People loved to talk about how Frank O'Hara didn't really care about getting published. That doesn't jibe with my experience.

Art feels like it has this frame, and it's either outside or inside.

The poet is like the wise fool or like a version of the stand-up, because we're standing, we're doing stand-up. That's exactly what we're doing.

I was a working-class kid from Boston. But I never lost my accent because I felt like that was what I was doing. I didn't have to perform Woody Guthrie like Bob Dylan did in the '60s, I just had to make myself be Eileen Myles and let that be my shield.

People love discovering you. The thing about not being historically a mainstream writer is that everyone feels like you're theirs, you're their friend.