Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation. Boots! Where would we be without books? Where would we be without good? No, Timberd. It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt.

This is Bookworm.

My guest today is Eileen Miles.

She's one of my beloved writers, and her most recent book, a book called Afterglow,

is really an extraordinary book. It's a book of prose, but it involves poetic states of mind

and memory and nostalgia and love. And yet, in none of the predictable

or sappy ways, how did you come to write afterglow?

I mean, I think I followed my nose and I followed the relationship, you know, and I think that

all the ways you have a relationship have to do with all the ways that you're a person.

A relationship with an animal is like a familial relationship. It involves many things,

including fantasy and language. So I just brought what I had to the book.

Well, I brought it to the dog.

I brought it to the relationship.

The dog brought it to me, and then I brought it to the book.

Who's the dog?

The dog is a very fine pit bull named Rosie, who lived from 1990 till 2006.

And she lived with you, and she was an immediate, right?

You met her, and she was yours.

I met her in the street.

She looked at me.

We made eye contact.

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