In her signature short, piercingly demotic lines, Myles (Skies
) fiercely mines concatenated observations for the raw stuff: "it's like genitals/ I want to show you all these tiny parts." Myles has, by her own count, written "thousands of poems," and now finds information and aesthetic pleasure in almost anything: "I agree/ It's a good place to shit," or as a poem titled "Culture" puts it: "It accepts all/ marks & none/ So I'll just write/ into it." Myles's short descriptive bursts read like object lessons in an unfailing and unflinching fidelity to experience, which has its own rewards: "You are the candy melting/ in my mouth./ Is that a euphemism/ For what? Witnessing your love." One poem tries to delineate British and American English— "the words were never/the same again"; another tries to pin down involuntary convulsions of beauty—"Why is light/ so damn emotional/ if it's just/ a burning star." (Apr.)
