Podcast Summary
New Books Network: Interview with Eileen Myles on “Pathetic Literature” (Grove Press, 2022)
Date: December 1, 2025
Host: Hal Coase
Guest: Eileen Myles
Overview
This episode features poet, novelist, and celebrated literary figure Eileen Myles in conversation with host Hal Coase about their anthology Pathetic Literature (Grove Press, 2022). The discussion delves into the concept of the “pathetic” in literature, how Myles curated the anthology, their influences, the shifting meaning of "pathetic," and the ambiguous, open-ended nature of both the book and the community it represents. The episode explores ideas of form, queerness, time, and devotion in literature, blending personal storytelling with literary theory.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Eileen Myles’ Literary Journey and Community
- Origins as a Poet and Writer – Myles recounts their move to NYC in the 1970s with the intention of becoming a poet and the vibrant, permissive literary community they found (02:29).
- Influential Communities – They describe a "tribe" of writers drawn to experimentation, queerness (broadly defined), and fringe culture, referencing figures like John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, Samuel Delaney, and New Narrative writers (03:15–06:00).
- Pathetic as Distinction – The term “pathetic” became a badge of experimental, boundary-breaking, often marginalized literature and writers (06:41).
Quote:
"I think always, I mean, I'm very much a writer who was born in a community and a community of others. …It always felt like kind of a permissive tribe of weirdos. And that was a way to define my taste." – Eileen Myles [04:42]
2. The Genesis and Meaning of “Pathetic Literature”
- Evolving the Concept – Myles traces the lineage of the term "pathetic," noting its shifting connotations from meaning to insult, and cites a 1990s art show “Pathetic Masculinity" as an important touchstone (06:41–08:45).
- From Seminar to Anthology – The notion was born in Myles' graduate seminar at UCSD; assembling Valerie Solanis, Delaney, Walser, and others. The class “was received very enthusiastically” and became a “pathetic conference” memorable for its chaos and humor (08:55–10:05).
- Pandemic Assembly – The COVID-19 pandemic provided time and focus for assembling the anthology, with Myles “picking a writer every day” and embracing the project as “discipline” and “counting thing” (09:20).
Quote:
“It was a perfect thing. I was in Marfa…and I started to edit the pathetic book in that time. It was a very counting thing, who will I pick a writer every day, you know, and throw them into the book.” – Eileen Myles [09:33]
3. Criteria: What Makes Writing “Pathetic”?
- Pleasurable Perversity of Selection – Selections are highly personal, sometimes surprising both editor and readers (10:44). Myles realized, for example, that Kathy Acker’s work had “big pots of pathetic” despite not being an obvious choice, and Borges was included after rediscovering him during the pandemic (10:44–12:30).
- Organizing Reality – Myles links pathetic literature to “ramshackle piles of things” shaped by the internet and chance, matching the protean, boundary-crossing drive they see at the core of the pathetic (11:40–12:40).
- "Pathetic" as Uncontainable – Any piece of literature could be considered pathetic by finding the “turn that struck you”; it’s about boundary-crossing, mess, and deeply felt outsiderness (12:30–13:30).
Quote:
"It is a very personal anthology…because of the Internet and the way we organize reality now, I think we're all these weird, ramshackle piles of things, you know. And I think pathetic really meets that kind of…organizing reality." – Eileen Myles [11:41]
4. Qualities and Ambiguities of the Pathetic
- Big and Small, Facing the “Hovering Monolith” – The pathetic is liminal: pressing against but not quite breaching boundaries, “facing up to something that can't be faced up to” (13:50).
- Queerness and “Normal” – Pathetic work resists binaries; it’s not “normal or abnormal” but “whatever normal can't get a hold of” [16:02–16:11].
- Troubled, Motivated Texts – Many works are “troubled by something they can't quite get into” but this tension propels their creation, making the pathetic a “queer feeling” (16:11–16:33).
5. The Thread of Time
- Disrespecting and Killing Time – Myles and Coase discuss how many anthology pieces play with the flow of time. Literature as “wasting” time, asserting a unique “time code,” and finding richness in erratic textual pacing (16:35–19:30).
- Geographical Time Codes – Myles compares Marfa and New York’s “time codes,” explaining how open, “always unraveling” time in Marfa fostered the anthology’s creation (18:36–19:30).
Quote:
“So much personality and literature is…a time code. That's what one recognizes in work and often decides whether to consume it or not based on your ability to endure that time code.” – Eileen Myles [17:17]
6. Devotion & Anthology as Practice
- Devotional Reading – The book can be dipped into over time: “I would also dare such a word as devotional because…the book and the concept is devoted to that kind of composition” (20:03).
7. Form: Diary, Letter, and Genre-Bending
- Preference for Unique Forms – The anthology favors work whose “formal quality was unique, not easily defined as this or that” (22:50).
- Editorial Lightness – Myles resists the canonizing, policing role of most anthologies, encouraging readers to imagine their own additions or omissions (24:40).
Quote:
“I really like the idea that it makes the reader feel like they are…they could be the editor…that they have text that they would slip in or imagine as part of its continuity.” – Eileen Myles [24:40]
8. Performance, Reception, and Pathetic Happenings
- Live Events as Extension – Myles describes organizing performance events (the “pathetic happening”) as central to the book’s life, staging marathon readings at St. Mark’s and elsewhere, fostering collective and performative experiences (25:56–27:45).
- Critical and Commercial Understatement – Despite lively events, the book was largely ignored by major US/UK literary outlets, a fate Myles finds fittingly “pathetic”—in the best sense (28:48).
Quote:
“It was a party. This is…a collective experience. Everybody will come out for this…I knew that it was inherently a performance's book.” – Eileen Myles [26:15]
“That seems pretty fittingly pathetic or…end for…[the book].” – Hal Coase [28:48]
9. What’s Next for Eileen Myles
- Big Novel in Progress – Myles is working on a novel begun in 2013, planning to make “a thousand page book” and confront the challenge of scale and stillness by living in Marfa for a year (29:34–30:26).
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- “It just… It just… It’s vague and it’s either… Sometimes it feels parental, the way childhood was just this incredibly tingly space that was always being marshaled by these adult figures… And yet that tingly thing, I think, is something that drives so much…” – Eileen Myles [14:17]
- “And that’s also for me really, where the weather, like queerness comes on. Not kind of... normal or abnormal; it’s just kind of whatever normal can’t get a hold of.” – Hal Coase [16:02]
- “I think it really like the idea that it makes the reader feel like they are... they could be the editor, you know... they would imagine as part of its continuity.” – Eileen Myles [24:40]
- “I have... my own experience as a writer is that when a book comes out, nothing happens.” – Eileen Myles [27:00]
- “Thank you so much.” – Hal Coase [30:26]
Important Timestamps
- [02:29] — Eileen Myles on their start as a poet and entrance into NYC literary scene
- [06:41] — Discussion of the word “pathetic” and “Pathetic Masculinity”
- [09:20] — Pandemic as the moment to assemble the anthology
- [10:44] — On surprising inclusions in the anthology (Acker, Borges, etc.)
- [13:50] — “Big vs. small”: definitions and contradictions of pathetic
- [16:02] — Queerness and “normal”; texts as troubled, driven by the unspeakable
- [17:17] — Literature, personality, and time codes
- [20:03] — The anthology as “devotional” text
- [22:50] — Forms in the anthology and genre resistance
- [24:40] — Reader as potential editor; openness of the anthology
- [25:56–27:45] — Live “pathetic happening” readings and performance as practice
- [28:48] — Book’s low mainstream reception as “fittingly pathetic”
- [29:34] — Next project: a monumental novel
- [30:26] — Closing thanks and reflections
Final Thoughts
This interview uncovers Pathetic Literature as a rebellious, unruly celebration of outsider writing and feeling—work that cherishes vulnerability, mess, and the power of failed or porous boundaries. Myles shares both the practicalities and deep philosophies behind the anthology, emphasizing its open-ended, personal nature and its grounding in performance, community, and ongoing conversation. The podcast itself reflects the spirit of the anthology: lively, accessible, and quietly radical.