Photo The writer and poet Eileen Myles, who has spent the last four decades in relative obscurity, is now a muse for the popular Amazon series "Transparent." Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Rocking a pinstriped Paul Smith suit and boots that she had picked up in Paris, Eileen Myles rolled into the Golden Globes here last weekend on the arm of her girlfriend, Jill Soloway, the creator of the Amazon series "Transparent," who was outfitted in a pink tuxedo and platform sneakers. Cool? The epitome.
But talk about a "dyke out of water," as Ms. Myles later described herself. At 66, she has spent the last four decades in the relative obscurity of punk poet-dom, publishing over 20 books of poetry, fiction and criticism, almost all with maverick presses. A generation of female writer-performers view her as indispensable. The rest of us: Eileen who? "I'm a loudmouthed lesbian, which means mainstream invisible," she said.
That is changing, though, and in many ways Ms. Myles — to her ecstatic bewilderment — has Hollywood to thank.
First came "Grandma," starring Lily Tomlin as Elle, an indomitable lesbian poet. The character was not overtly modeled on Ms. Myles, according to Paul Weitz, the film's writer-director. But her poetry is showcased. (When Mr. Weitz called to seek permission, the ever-blunt Ms. Myles recalled responding: "Am I going to be some old lesbian sitting on the porch scratching her balls? Because that's kind of embarrassing.")
Continue reading the main story The second season of "Transparent," the acclaimed series about gender and sexual identity, arrived late last month, and Ms. Myles is all over it. Cherry Jones plays a poet based on her, her poetry is recited by various characters across multiple episodes, and Ms. Myles appears as an extra. "The best thing @transparent_tv has done is made more people aware of @EileenMyles," the critic Ken Tucker wrote on Twitter.
The timing was perfect: HarperCollins had just published her collection "I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014" and reissued "Chelsea Girls," her out-of-print 1994 autobiographical novel, both of which generated strong reviews. As the books, movie and series started feeding one another, Ms. Myles finally started reaching the masses. (Well, maybe not Kardashian masses. But still.)
"It's real, and it's accidental," she told me at a coffee shop the afternoon after the Globes. "You know, evolution is not an even process. There are surges, and there are micromoments. Certainly a career as an artist is that way."
She added of her current surge: "I'm a little grateful, humble. And I'm excited to see what happens next. I keep being told: 'You need to capitalize on this. You've got to use it.' So I'm going to go sit in Texas — I have a house in Marfa — and try to decide what the most important thing is to do next."
The answer may involve a screenplay or series of her own.
"I have some ideas about there being a show that is even more about poets," she said. "Poems, as eggs, should be put in larger baskets."
Adapting "Chelsea Girls" for the screen is another possibility, she said. The book recounts her childhood and then takes an alcohol-soaked ride through the East Village of New York in the 1980s. (Not in the book: Ms. Myles recalled how she and her girlfriend at the time planned to make art films, including one called 'Lavender Booties,' about two butch lesbians who are always crocheting. It was to be in black and white — except for the booties.)
But Ms. Myles's new status as a Hollywood inside-outsider hasn't entirely softened her feelings about the entertainment business. She was still reeling from the Globes, which she described as "a mild acid trip." And a bad one, in some ways. She was incensed, for instance, about Ricky Gervais's monologue, which included a graphic joke about the genitalia of Jeffrey Tambor, who plays a transgender character on "Transpare nt."
"It was completely horrifying and such an incredible example of bullying," she said. "The message was, 'Here, this is fun, this is what we serve first at our party.'" She continued: "But there's also a bright side, I guess. That kind of contempt, sexism and bullying is the squawks of a falling empire, which I think Hollywood is." (Mr. Gervais, responding to an outcry that his monologue, including a joke about Caitlyn Jenner, was transphobic, said on Twitter: "You have every right to be offended. Just don't cry when no one cares.")
Ms. Myles met her girlfriend in May, when they were panelists at a museum event in San Francisco. Coincidentally, Ms. Soloway, 50, had been doing research on Ms. Myles, whom she had never met, because her "Transparent" writing staff had suggested modeling a character on her.
"Jill admitted later that she had this whole dossier on me," Ms. Myles said. "It was cute and romantic."
Photo Ms. Myles with her girlfriend, Jill Soloway, left, the creator of "Transparent," in a selfie at the Golden Globes.
Ms. Soloway, in a December profile in The New Yorker, said that, around that time, she had read one of Ms. Myles's journals, which had been purchased by the "Transparent" staff. "I open it up, and the first thing it says is, 'Whoever falls in love with me is in trouble,'" Ms. Soloway told the magazine.
Asked what she meant by that, Ms. Myles broke into a goofy grin.
"It could also be true that anybody who falls in love with Jill is in trouble — deeply, deeply in trouble," she said, with a laugh. "If you both have s trong wills, you're always pushing the boundaries. Love is trouble, you know, which is one thing that is so great about it."
In an email, Ms. Soloway said: "I see Eileen as a wayward walking country minister posing as a dyke poet. Her mind is the most expansive mind I've ever had the pleasure of being in contrast to. There is no thought or impulse of mine, be it revolutionary, feminist, radical, dirty, beautiful, silly, abstract or murderous, that feels ugly. That totally frees me up to say to myself: more, more, more."
In person, Ms. Myles was generous and engaging, even when I stumbled upon the occasional sore subject. For instance, I mentioned an article about her in The Boston Globe in which she was described as the New York poetry scene's "godmother even before she was old enough to be a godmother." Wrong thing to say. "Godfather would be better," she said, a bit curtly. "I ask my nephew to call me Uncle Eileen."
Ms. Myles continued: "Gender is such a big issue today, but in so many micro ways. Here's an example. I wear my jeans low, and I continually get stopped at airports. The scans tell them I should be a man. The T.S.A. people call it a 'groin anomaly.' Can you believe that?
"One screener woman literally said to me, 'Do you have a penis?' And I answered, 'Were you seeing a penis on your monitor?' And she said, 'I'm asking you seriously: Do you have a penis?'" (Ms. Myles's answer: "Not today.")
Ms. Myles grew up in blue-collar Arlington, Mass. Deciding in 1974 that she wanted to pursue a career in poetry, she moved to New York and became an assistant to James Schuyler, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.
She seems to have done an impossibly enormous amo unt of living. She once toured the country in a minivan with an all-female poetry group called Sister Spit. She has conducted writing workshops in Mexico, taught at the University of California, San Diego, served as artistic director of the Poetry Project in New York and — oh, yeah — run for president; she campaigned as an "openly female" write-in candidate in 1991 and 1992, traveling to 28 states.
"Eileen is kind of like a gunslinger, with pretension as the enemy," Mr. Weitz said in a phone interview.
She laughed at the image.
"You know, Jill and I wrote this document — I guess it's a manifesto — when we were in Paris that talks about how men should agree to stop writing books for 50 years, and men should stop making films for 100 years," she said. "Extreme! But I think that movements only grow by hyperbole. It's not that we literally think it will happen or should happen or has to happen. But it has to be put out there. Because I want everything. I don't want delicate change — the chipping away slowly. Screw that."
