September 12: Joan Larkin—Old Stranger: Poems
Presented by 192 Books, Joan Larkin in conversation with Eileen Myles to discuss her new book Old Stranger: Poems (Alice James Books, 2024)
This event will take place in person at 192 Books at 192 10th Ave on Thursday, September 12th at 7:00 PM ET. The event is free, with no reserved seating. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. The discussion will also be streamed directly on this page. There is no login or RSVP required. A recording will be archived.
Books will be available for sale after the conversation.
Joan Larkin—Old Stranger (Alice James Books, 2024)
By reckoning with all of the moments that shape a woman’s life, and the many shapes a woman’s life can take—from mother to daughter to trauma survivor to feminist—Old Stranger asks the reader to contend with whether we can ever truly know ourselves: the other in the mirror. In the spirit of Diane Seuss, these unflinching and gut-punching poems are for those who believe truth-telling is a necessity in an unforgiving yet tender world.
Writing poems inspired by Pierre Bonnard, Camille Claudel, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Wayne Theibaud, animals, elements of grammar, Larkin's book is filled with loss, love, and beauty.
Photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
Joan Larkin is the author of five previous poetry collections, including Blue Hanuman and My Body: New and Selected Poems. She has received the Audre Lorde Award, the Lambda Literary Award. She co-founded Out & Out Books during the 1970s feminist literary explosion, co-edited four anthologies, including Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time, and has been a lifelong teacher. Larkin has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She received the 2011 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Photo by Shae Detar
Eileen Myles (b. 1949, they/them) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature, which they edited, came out in Fall of 22. Their newest collection of poems, a “Working Life”, is out now. Their fiction includes Chelsea Girls (1994) which just won France’s Inrockuptibles Prize for best foreign novel, Cool for You (2000), Inferno (a poet’s novel) (2010) and Afterglow (2017). Writing on art was gathered in the volume The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art (2009). Books of poetry include Evolution (2018) and I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014. Their super-8 road film “The Trip” is on YouTube. They live in New York & in Marfa, TX.