♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Listen, I'm educated.

I've learned about Western Civilization.

Do you know what the message of Western Civilization is?

I am alone.

Am I alone tonight?

I don't think so.

Am I the only one with bleeding gums in this room tonight?

Am I the only homosexual in this room tonight?

Am I only one whose friends have died, are dying now?

And my Art can't be supported until it is gigantic, bigger than everyone else's, confirming the audience's feeling that they are alone, that they alone are good, deserved to buy the tickets to see this Art, are working, are healthy, should survive, and are normal.

Are you normal tonight?

It is not normal for me to be a Kennedy, but I am no longer alone, no longer ashamed.

I'm not alone tonight because we are all Kennedys, and I am your president.

♪♪ ♪♪ So you want a tour of the art?

Woman: Yes.

So this painting right here is "My Dance with Sullivan."

Well, I like it because it's geometric, and yet it's sort of, like, almost not there.

It's sort of like the green is so abstract and the black -- black is so heavy, and I feel like it's sort of a -- it's like an off-cross.

And Dennis was extremely Irish, and so there's kind of a Celtic cross in there in a certain way, you know?

And of course, you know, kind of the -- this is maybe -- maybe -- I don't know how close to his -- his dying Dennis painted it, but I feel there's a kind of an intense heaviness in it that is so powerful.

Yeah, so this little poster is from [indistinct].

This is like a strange, uh... Well, it's sort of a rebus.

I love this poster.

She was -- I think she was flipped out.

I went to a performance of hers and she was like, "Why are you buying this?"

But why was she selling it?

We get Doug Padgett's "Beach Ball," which is on the cover of "Skies."

He's one of my favorite artists.

He's always doing things from a strange, childlike perspective, where here it's just like an endless perspective.

It's like, at this point, I love this apartment, and I, you know, I just -- I've lived here for almost 40 years, and so it feels like my hotel room inside of New York where, you know -- I mean, I've sort of outgrown it a million times, and then I just keep digging my heels in.

It's home, you know?

But, so there's been, like, all sorts of moments where I thought, "This is incredible."

And it was incredible, but, you know, what's incredible often is just writing an amazing poem.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Horns honking ] [ Indistinct conversations ] There's a little sequence of love poems.

"One thousand times I've read and wrote -- " and "For Love" is Robert Creeley's "For Love," which was, like, such an important book to so many of us, you know, coming up in the '70s -- "Or writing For Love poem is wishing when I stop waiting."

"Is wishing when I stop waiting.

One thousand times I've read and wrote For Love.

Wear my sneakers, drink my bourbon, be 28 in spite of me.

In mirrors, Christ!

I look fucking old.

For Love I would dream when my schemes fall through, Man, could that little girl dance!

For Love I will read it 10,000 times for my tomboy cousin Jean Marie, for radio song.

For Love I would not pity me, my 28, sneakers, bourbon, the unseen future of my communications, and the lamp-light, Her, she holds me here, so rampantly in her evening beauty."

And this is kind of the even bigger, better post-love poem.

You know?

[ Audience chuckles ] I feel like poets are really good at being in love but really great at breaking up.

You know, it's just like, pfft!

"I suppose going blind is momentarily seeing colors in everything and remembering them for the rest of your life.

I'm afraid to tell you I'm going blind.

What I'm saying is I'm retiring from God.

I will feel my genius quietly.

The furrows of a dead tree accepting my love.

You start like a car and pepper in a number of growls.

That's dog.

You roll in your bird.

And Buddha's difficult now, more of an aside.

It's something so different as the sun could turn I think, and we're turning in our dirty little urn.

There's a movie about everything.

My getting this part of that, endlessly obliged to be wise.

Upstairs, 16 little eggs turn in another galaxy, someone else's sandwich.

Today I was so busy, I didn't even see lunch.

I had it, but I didn't see it at all.

The distant eggs are turning for someone else.

I poured Fresca into my glass, and then I poured my vodka, and then I got drunk.

Darker day now, my throat fills and Buddha's awake.

A bee wants to sting me.

And in that moment, I would notice everything.

Why do you think I'm sweet?

Why must I die?"

♪♪ ♪♪ Nelson: I mean, maybe this is what Eileen herself talks about when she talks about prognosticating your audience, where you kind of don't write for a kind of person that already exists, but you kind of bring into being a kind of person via your writing.

But I think, you know, I guess I say that as background for the way in which I feel like reading her writing for the first time felt two-fold.

On the one hand, it felt like your own thoughts or feelings returning to you, you know, as Emerson would say, "with alienated majesty," kind of like, "I thought about my cunt being like a spaghetti on a plate," or whatever.

Like, these kind of things that felt very, like, "Yes, exactly," you know?

And then also, you know, Eileen and I, just demographically and background-wise, you know, we're dissimilar, and so I felt like she also had a lot of news that I could use about, you know, the East Coast, about, you know, growing up working-class, about, you know, I'm not -- I don't know what I am, but I'm not, you know -- have not been, like, a lifelong card-carrying lesbian, you know.

And I think that, you know, she's talked about this later with "Sister Spit" and other -- which was kind of more of a people of my generation, but, like, for a kind of tribe of women artists and writers who didn't find models for -- I mean, like, well, didn't find models either for identity, but also didn't find models maybe for the kind of wild, like you were saying, like kind of Henry Miller-type writing or different things that we wanted to do.

Eileen was also, like, a huge beacon and permission giver.

I mean, like, there's this Emily Dickinson, and, you know, it was a list, a standard list of women, right?

And what if you don't like those women?

Woman: I know.

What if you don't, you know?

And then it's like, but it's almost like it puts women in this unique position reflecting your own hero.

Yeah, you're like trailblazers.

It's like -- yeah, which is really exciting, actually.

I mean, and entirely egotistical, you know, because, I mean, I think so many women in lots of positions, is either the only women there or, you know -- I mean, like, think of the first woman president.

I mean, you know, you would feel great.

Myles: It's -- It's two.

Well, one is the first time I orchestrated a puppet show when I was a child.

You know, I-I -- through the -- through the reality of growing up in an alcoholic family where I didn't want to be home after school and the fact that I was Catholic and there was something called CYO, Catholic Youth Organization, and they had after-school classes, so I took an after-school class every day.

I was a complete workaholic child, and my favorite class was puppet making.

We had this amazing German woman, Ms. Ursula, who taught us to make, you know, papier-mâché puppets with, you know, great outfits and painting -- painted heads.

And so I created about five of them -- an alligator, a ghost, two boys, and a girl.

And and then I got all my neighborhood friends and somebody who had a great porch and we, you know, promoted it widely.

And I wrote the play and we performed it.

And it was amazing.

It was just, like, to just go through all those steps and to see it happen, you know, was probably the first great moment of my childhood.

And I think as an adult artist, publishing "Chelsea Girls," you know, because I felt like I had long wanted to write prose, like, the prose that a poet could write.

And I -- And I had a hard time making that transition.

It wasn't -- when I read a book by -- a book called "La Bâtarde" by Violette Leduc, it was like the missing link, because it was very beautiful poetic prose.

I think she considers it a memoir.

And Francois Truffaut was doing the thing of narrating the life, the child's life.

It was the same thing.

I'm always obsessed when I see somebody do all the ages, you know, like a kind of a completeness.

So he did, like, you know, "400 blows" and "Bed and Board."

And I thought, "Where is the female version of this?

You know, where is the female Antoine Doinel?"

When I wrote a story called "Bread and Water," I think I came to the realization that I could just -- 'cause, also, my girlfriend and I, at the time, really wanted to make independent films, and everybody was doing them in the East Village.

And we had a little camera, but we didn't even have a -- the timecode was broken, and we had no money and we were always broke and we spent every cent on beer and stuff.

And so somehow we figured -- we got a hold of some film and we put it in the camera and we orchestrated it and we shot.

We had no idea when the camera was actually shooting.

And, you know, we just -- we wanted to do it.

We were endlessly having ideas we couldn't do.

We were too messed up, you know?

And so I thought, "What if I just write about our life exactly as if it were a film and let the sounds be in the same track as the visuals and the thoughts be in the same track as the conversation and just pour it forward, you know, and just, you know -- just kind of record my life, you know?"

[ Woman singing indistinctly ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ Come on.

Come on.

Woman: I don't think... Yeah, I know.

It's very beautiful dog.

Come on.

Come on.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Hey.

I want to say -- can I say something?

Yeah, of course.

Okay, cool, 'cause I just wanted to -- and I feel I should be standing here.

Do you mind?

I want to stand here.

So I just -- what I just wanted to say was that dog is queer.

Dog is tot-- I mean, when I think about when I ran for president in 1992 and I posed with my pit bull, Rosie, not with my girlfriend, what that meant was that that upset the binary of Mr. President and his wife more than two dykes sitting there, you know?

It's sort of like, man and dog, woman and dog, queer and dog.

It's like, this is -- you know, this is a queer partnership.

And even when I think of my mom gone and am I, like, more single than ever before, or am I partnered, you know?

And I'm really queer partnered.

And I think that's so much about what dogs mean, you know, and why I'm glad she's here, you know?

And, like, all the words that are, like, "icon" or "legend," they're all -- or the worst one of all is "treasure."

They're creepy.

Whether you like it or not, you are permanently contextualized as being queer and other.

And I mean, like, this is, like, no news, you know?

Like, "lesbian poet."

I was like -- so it's sort of -- it's like that shelf, too, which is kind of -- I mean, it's sort of like I think it's only -- I would say what's weird in my own career is it's, like, the level of attention and fame that I've been experiencing in the last five years -- it has busted that, but it took so much attention to make me be more than a lesbian poet.

You know, even though my work is about so many things besides, you know, pussy.

♪♪ I was the director of The Poetry Project from 1984 to '86, which was kind of my get-sober job, and it was the first adult job I had had.

And I had lots of... conflicts with my board, and I had -- and I kind of in a way knew this shit was hitting the fan.

And in some ways, my Kennedy poem was in response to that.

I was like I had gone through a breakup.

I felt like I was about -- I felt my job destabilized, my world destabilized, and it was sort of like I flipped it all into being a Kennedy.

"You are the new Americans.

The homeless are wandering the streets of our nation's greatest city.

Homeless men with AIDS are among them.

Is that right?

That there are no homes for the homeless, that there is no free medical help for these men and women?"

So the Kennedy poem basically flipped me into a relation of power, which was something I had not experienced before.

I mean, like, poetry was always that in a way, but it was, like -- it was so literal and overt, and I liked that feeling.

Love: So, I mean, I think that that sense of queer genius as you're both damned [chuckles] and elect, right?

You know, am I like, just this, like, totally abject person, right?

Like, broke, drunk, you know, nobody, like, wants -- wants me, like, in their bed or in their poetry collection, or am I, like, the president of the United States, right?

And I think she -- that sort of toggling between, like, abjection and, you know, utopia, right, or just like, "I'm the best," right, is -- really runs all through her writing.

♪♪ ♪♪ Myles: Thich Nhat Hanh not so long ago said that in the 21st century, the Buddha is a group.

And I think that's one of the most interesting things I've ever heard, and I feel like I look at it everywhere.

You know, like, I feel like a lot of my politics have been in the art world, you know, in terms of what -- what you show and how you show it and how you don't stand alone, you know, like that joke when, you know, everybody standing there, whether it's Charlie Chaplin or who, when they were like, "Any volunteers?"

And everybody, you know, steps back and there's one person standing there, and I kind of mean the opposite, you know, that everybody steps forward.

♪♪ Love: And I think, you know, that's -- I mean, I think that's part of the way people understand Eileen's influence, right, is that it's this kind of punk queerness that, you know, she pioneered, like, at a really early moment.

It was, like, so amazing and so awesome and so cool that two women could be together, and it was also messy, and in the stew, like, in the soup with, like, everybody else, right?

It didn't sort of get you off the hook about -- about just how messy and complicated desire is.

"Right away, I'd like to separate this Robin from all Robins you or I have ever known.

This Robin I'm about to tell you about is not someone that any of us know.

She is somebody I found.

And I would like to tell her secret.

'I feel nervous,' I confided nervously teetering over the counter that faced the itchy couch.

'Why do you feel nervous?

Would it make you feel better to tell me?'"

[ Chuckles ] "These quiet utterances thundered like the I Ching.

What a jerk I am.

I never wanted to go to hell, but I thought I could date the devil.

This is awful.

I have invited a wolf into my home.

I went over and started knocking into, touching, kissing the wolf.

It was the only thing I could think of doing.

'C'mere, get up," I huskily growled.

'Where are we going?'

she whispered, tamed.

'Over there.'

I pointed at the bed.

My goal from the day before was to get her clothes completely off -- that kind of sex.

I was trying to get her shoes off to be sort of sexy/servile, but I was so awkward she pulled her weird green '70s rockstar boot back to herself and started untying.

Momentarily, She acted as if she really intended to ravage me, but it was a phony growl.

She didn't know how.

I must fuck Robin.

That was my job.

'Do you want my fist inside you?'

'Anything, she shrieked.

'Anything.'

So this is my late winter stolen landscape.

Robin's hungry butt bobbing in front of my window next to my desk where I write.

I felt my home, myself violated by this animal.

I couldn't stop."

It's like it's really about, like, how -- how it is that you can sort of make peace, right, with, like, your desires and to, like, really fully dwell on them, right, and just kind of be like, "Well, this is, you know... Fucking's really important."

[ Laughs ] And being, you know -- there's that scene in "Chelsea Girl" where she's like, "Oh, I was gonna have to fuck her.

Like, she's not gonna fuck me."

And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, you know, like, that's a real thing."

Kind of, like, being able to differentiate yourself from other people's bodies.

Like, "Oh, right.

The first thing is that, like, I am not this other person and, like, so how are we gonna relate to each other in this moment?"

It's great, you know?

And it's like it totally gives a lie to, like, the stupid idea that, like, people merge as lovers.

Like, no, you don't, actually.

You know, like, there's this whole other thing taking place.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Applause ] Why, thank you.

This is called -- This is called "Marfa Poem."

"On a windy day and my shack goes clatter.

And you could meditate all day long like the sun, like a cup of coffee.

Call Billy for that piece of concrete.

Jesus found me Chemex filters.

You don't -- You didn't turn me on.

I watched the sun shift.

The Chantal Akerman film.

Don't panic.

Karen bought this towel.

She said, 'You like denim.

Kitties under the bed, Mum.'

She said, 'You're too old for a house.

Texas?'

A jokey gift is not a gift.

Talking, of course, about that mug.

Honey keeps returning to the miracle.

And this Christmas is already so much better than last.

That's why I went to church by myself."

♪♪ It's very interesting, okay?

I'm 66 right now, and I got sober when I was 33.

So I'm basically, like -- I've lived half my life not drinking and taking drugs, you know, and it's -- I mean, like, it's kind of one of my favorite things in the world.

I mean, I love drinking, I love booze, I love drugs, I loved amphetamines, I loved -- I mean, I loved heroin, I loved acid so much.

But, I mean, I feel like all that was great, you know?

Getting high, getting drunk, drinking was great, but actually not doing it is greater, you know?

And, you know, and I have many friends who don't drink and take drugs.

And those friendships nurture and support me, and I support them, but it's sort of like what we all agreed on early on is that we came to a realization that we didn't want to die and that finally that's where all that stuff takes some of us.

And I have -- and the thing that's great is I have a bank of memories of living in a really disastrous way.

It's -- what's funny is that in some ways, I've made a big part of my career on being, you know, like, a crazy, young drunk and having this kind of bad lesbian life and doing ridiculous things.

And yet I've been so far away from her for so long that it's almost like I'm her interpreter rather than her.

I mean, I feel like I loved Gertrude Stein pronouncing herself a genius.

I mean, you know, talking about people who I've been deeply influenced by, she's kind of in the, you know, number and the kind of moving number-one position, because I think she -- her own self-awareness of listening and talking and making that into a work in itself, you know, and part of that was to declare herself -- she defined genius as the ability to talk and listen at the same time, and then, and also then said, "That's what I'm doing right now," you know, and was a woman who would claim that for herself.

You know, it's like genius seems to me to be that kind of parts suddenly becoming a whole, you know?

Like, when I think about, you know, the Beatles, or the Five Lesbian Brothers, it's like, how did those five artists who were all pretty good suddenly together become this thing that was never there before?

You know, and I think it happens continually in theater and, you know, and music.

But I think it also happens in literature in that kind of -- in a kind of arrangement.

So I suppose I would think -- I think if I think as a kind of an excited word choice, I think it means that kind of, like, exciting arrangement of things that produces something that's really kind of lit and, you know, and makes everybody go, "Wow," you know?

And I've been at such -- I've been at such performances.

I read such books.

Sometimes I think I've written such poems or books or said such things.

It's sort of like -- so in a way, I think it's this floating thing that occupies you for a moment.

♪♪ [ Gate squeaks ] I have, like, an ideal process, which is -- and I've even written about this -- like, you get up in the morning, you drink coffee, then you go running with -- if you have a dog, with the dog.

Then you come home, you meditate, you eat, and then you work and you feel so perfect at that moment.

And for some reason, I can't adhere to that at all.

And I've just been sort of all over the place.

Like, yesterday I thought, "It's rubble.

All that's coming out of me is rubble."

You know, and today I felt like I was editing a little bit and I wrote a few pages.

"Oh, before the day is over, I'll write more today."

When I'm in this magical stage of writing -- and I feel this way about, you know, writing a poem, even if I'm writing in my journal, just writing an entry, I just feel not quite elevated, but just in some space that is not even private.

It's just -- it's kind of utopian.

You know, I think writing -- I need writing to be that place because that's -- that's why it's the work that I do.

You know, it's kind of imaginary and... ...and we don't know where it's going.

And it's honest about that.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪