Pathetic Literature

"An utterly unique collection composed by the award-winning writer, a global anthology of pieces from lesser-known classics by luminaries like Franz Kafka, Samuel R. Delany, and Gwendolyn Brooks to up-and-coming writers, that examine the politics of pathos and feeling, giving a well-timed rehab to the word "pathetic". "Literature is pathetic." So claims Eileen Myles in their bold and bracing introduction to Pathetic Literature, an exuberant collection of pieces ranging from poetry to theater to prose to something in between, all of which explore those so-called "pathetic" or sensitive feelings around which lives are built and revolutions are incited. Myles first reclaimed the word for a seminar they taught at the University of California, San Diego, rescuing it from the derision into which it had slipped and restoring its original meaning of inspiring emotion or feeling, from the ancient Greek rhetorical method pathos. Their reinvention of "pathetic" formed the bedrock for this anthology, which includes a breathtaking 105 contributors, encompassing titans of global literature like Robert Walser, Jorge Luis Borges, Rumi, and Gwendolyn Brooks, queer icons and revolutionaries like Dodie Bellamy, Samuel R. Delany, and Bob Flanagan, as well as the invigorating newness and excitement of writers on the rise, including Nicole Wallace, Precious Okoyomon, and Will Farris. Creative nonfiction by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Jack Halberstam, and Porochista Khakpour rubs shoulders with poetry by Natalie Diaz, Victoria Chang, Lucille Clifton, and Ariana Reines, all joined by prose from Chester Himes, Djuna Barnes, Chris Kraus, and Qiu Miaojin, among so many others. The result is a matchless anthology that is as much an ongoing dialogue as an essential compendium of queer, revolutionary, joyful, and always moving literature. From confrontations with suffering, embarrassment, and disquiet, to the comforts and consolations of finding one's familiar double in a poem, Pathetic Literature is a swarming taxonomy of ways to think differently and live pathetically on a polarized and fearful planet"--

Introduction by Eileen Myles
“ untitled” by Alice Notley
“ we’ re the only colored people here” by Gwendolyn Brooks
“ People Without Names” by The Friend
“ Loveland” by Kevin Killian
“ Yesterday I Was” by Ama Birch
“ Afterword: The Great Punctuation Typography Struggle” by Andrea Dworkin
“ Truth or Consequences” by Ariana Reines
Excerpt from The Pain Journal by Bob Flanagan
“ A Description of the Camp” by Baha’ Ebdeir
“ Would You Wear My Eyes? ” by Bob Kaufman
“ August 6, 2011” by Brandon Shimoda
Excerpt from The Romanian: Story of an Obsession by Bruce Benderson
“ My Faggot Kansas Blood Confessions to the Earth” and “ My Faggot Blood on His Fist” by CAConrad
“ Reading My Catastrophe” by Camille Roy
“ Soap Bubbles in the Dirty Water” by Can Xue
Excerpt from Texas: The Great Theft by Carmen Boullosa
Excerpt from My Mother Laughs by Chantal Akerman
“ Before You Go” by Charles Bernstein
Excerpt from If He Hollers, Let Him Go by Chester Himes
Excerpt from I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
Excerpt from “ Some Other Deaths of Bas Jan Ader” by Dana Ward
“ Being Close to Data” by Dara Barrois/Dixon
Excerpt from God Jr. by Dennis Cooper
Excerpt from “ Fat Chance” by Dodie Bellamy
Excerpts from Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
“ Campaign Letter for President of the United States, 1991” by Eileen Myles
“ that flaming brand” and “ Boulder/Meteor” by essa may ranapiri
Excerpts from Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan
“ A Child in Old Age” and “ A Vision” by Fanny Howe
“ there is religious tattooing” by Fred Moten
“ Play It Again, S” by Gail Scott
Excerpt from Letter to His Father by Franz Kafka
Excerpt from Lenz by Georg Bü chner
Excerpt from My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley
“ My Struggle” by Jack Halberstam
“ This Dark Apartment” by James Schuyler
“ Chronicle” by Frank B. Wilderson III
Excerpt from Winter in the Blood by James Welch
“ 28. ” by Jerome Sala
“ An Obituary” by Joe Proulx
“ Stop” by Joan Larkin
“ The Merry Widow and The Rubber Husband (or How I Caught HIV: Version 4; Fall 1983)” by Joe Westmoreland
“ The Copyists” by Jocelyn Saidenberg
“ Catullus Tells Me Not to Write the Rant Against the Poem ‘ Good Bones’ by Maggie Smith” by The Cyborg Jillian Weise
Selections from The Hotel Wentley Poems by John Wieners
“ The Cult of the Phoenix” by Jorge Luis Borges
“ A Woman Is Talking to Death” by Judy Grahn
“ You Better Come” by Justin Torres
“ New Haven” by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
“ SMALL/MEDIUM/LUST” by Andrea Abi-Karam
Excerpt from Great Expectations by Kathy Acker
“ 38” by Layli Long Soldier
Excerpt from Light While There Is Light by Keith Waldrop
“ Shadow Janitor” by Kim Hyesoon
Excerpt from Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristí n Ó marsdó ttir
“ In Case I Don’ t Notice, ” “ God Gives You What You Can Handle, ” and “ The Only Good” by Laura Henriksen
Excerpt from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
Excerpt from Wigger by Lawrence Braithwaite
“ Worms Make Heaven” by Laurie Weeks
“ the mother’ s story” and “ slave cabin, sotterly plantation, maryland, 1989” by Lucille Clifton
Excerpt from No Lease on Life by Lynne Tillman
Excerpt from All the Battles by Maan Abu Taleb
Selections from Bluets by Maggie Nelson
“ East River Park Oak Tree” by Marcella Durand
Excerpt from “ Potatoes or Rice? ” by Matthew Stadler
“ For the Death of 100 Whales, ” “ Flower Garland Froth, ” and “ Fleshy Nave” by Michael McClure
“ Polishness” by Michelle Tea
“ haiku, ” “ untitled 8, ” “ 5 years old, ” and “ untitled 2” by Mira Gonzalez
“ Sum, ” “ People Like Monsters, ” “ How to, ” and “ Great” by Morgan Võ
“ Wedding Loop” by Moyra Davey
“ My Brother, My Wound” by Natalie Diaz
Excerpts from Goner by Nate Lippens
“ it doesn’ t matter how you fall into light, she said” and “ think of the words as angels singing in your vagina, she said” by Akilah Oliver
“ Los Angeles” by Porochista Khakpour
“ NIIZH” by Nicole Wallace
“ Letter Three” by Qiu Miaojin
“ Intercepts” by Rae Armantrout
“ The Gift of Sight” by Rebecca Brown
Selection from The Activist by Renee Gladman
“ April 4 Friday” by Rose “ Rosebud” Feliu-Pettet
“ Kleist in Thun” by Robert Walser
“ Ed and the Movies” by Robert Glü ck
“ Four times over, ” “ I see you and I am getting closer, ” and “ Strain” by Sallie Fullerton
“ Yesterday I went to him full of dismay” by Rumi
“ Manual for General Housework” by Saidiya Hartman
Excerpt from Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Excerpt from Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany
Selections from The Pillow Book by Sei Shō nagon
Excerpt from Notes Toward a Pamphlet by Sergio Chejfec
“ Letter I: Hesitations Concerning Baptism” by Simone Weil
“ Stingray” by Simone White
“ it’ s dissociation season” by Precious Okoyomon
“ TOTAL LOL” by Sophie Robinson
“ The Slow Read Movement” and “ Lincoln’ s Lost Speech” by Sparrow
“ Inez, I Have to Gloat: You’ re Gorgeous” and “ Inez, When Someone Tells You You’ re a Bitch” by Sor Juana Iné s de la Cruz
“ Where I Left Off” by Susie Timmons
“ Falling for You” by Tim Johnson and Mark So
“ Email to Mark Tim” by Eileen Myles
Selection from Up Your Ass by Valerie Solanas
“ Goodbye Forever” by Steve Carey
Excerpt from La Bâ tarde by Violette Leduc
Selection from The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Tom Cole
“ Time” by Victoria Chang
“ A Story that the United States is Made of” and “ Pass” by Tongo Eisen-Martin
Excerpts from The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
“ MW Duet, ” “ Awake, ” “ Body, ” and “ Orlando” by Will Farris
After Words by Eileen Myles