View of The Importance of Being Iceland. Travel Essays in Art

Image & Narrative, Vol 10, No 3 (2009) 97 Eileen Myles

The Importance of Being Iceland. Travel Essays in Art

Semiotext(e) Active Agents Series, distr. by the MIT Press, 2009, 366 p. ISBN: 978-1-58435-066-8 (paper)

If the literary essay is also a form of poetry, which it certainly can be, and if there exists also something like “free verse” in this field, then these travel essays by Eileen Myles might be a good candidate to illustrate this new genre or poetic modus. They have the same thematic freedom, yet also the same sense of topical importance: Myles is able to write about anything, but that anything is never indifferent, the seemingly free-floating attention of the author is always directed to socially and culturally relevant material (the descriptions of a landscape, the review of an exhibition, the reading of a book are permanently linked to matters of politics, sexuality, or identity, the issue of Lesbian culture being the autobiographical and critical dimension that ties it all together). These essays share with our idea of free verse also the fascination if not obsession with rhythm and mood, and a sense of surprise astonishment that tend to make each sentence into a kind of cliff-hanger. They also borrow from free verse poetry the constant appraisal of an active reader, willing to “jam” with the writer as well as reluctant to every kind of easy entertainment.

But free verse poetry is also poetry, and therefore lyric, i.e. a kind of writing whose final and essential motivation is the “I” of the writer. It is the personality of the author that gives its weight and its price to the sometimes overwhelming diversity of themes and subjects that are covered in this book: a travelogue to Iceland, meetings with people, reflections on the body, but in all cases the texts are firmly held together by the (strong) personality of the author. This presence of the auctorial voice can be for some readers an obstacle, but it is also the element that makes the difference between this book and many other ones. Love it or leave it, but why not consider this free verse poetry a refreshing contribution to the kind of cultural critique that Myles stands for. And for those who would prove sceptical: the content matter of this book may seen chaotic, yet it really tackles the issues, the names, the works, the places, the practices, the events, the fads, the classics, the basics, the still to be identified issues that matter.