Eileen Myles: 'People just have to blow it up. That's what I've done for 30 years'

The New York poet has been writing since the mid-70s but with new fans – like Lena Dunham – she’s become one of 2015’s most celebrated literary stars

For someone so indelibly associated with the East Village, it comes as no surprise when Eileen Myles suggests we meet in a hole-in-the-wall-type café to talk about this “shocking moment” (her words) in her career.

That “moment” is being described as her ascension into the mainstream. It’s taken a while to come – she’s 19 books into a career – but this week Myles has two books out from a commercial publisher: a reprint of her autobiographical novel Chelsea Girls, and I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2015.

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