The People’s Poet

WITH A DEDICATED FERVOR, EASYGOING EMPATHY, AND MAGNETIC CHARISMA, MYLES BURR REARS THE SEACOAST’S POETRY SCENE

Burr, hairy chest and medallions glistening beneath his trademark fur coat, performing at The Press Room, where he also tends bar. Photography by Max Schoenfeld

I don’t see Myles Burr when I walk into the brewery. We’ve never met, but I have an idea of the kind of character I should be looking for. Poets should be easy to pick out of a crowd, I think – what with their hipster clothes and French berets and bongo drums – and I’m looking for the man who may perhaps be Portsmouth’s most influential and prolific young poet. The cream of the crop. I’ll be able to spot him from a mile away, I think.

I’m a poetry skeptic. Despite my career as a writer, I’ve never studied the form or even dabbled in it. I chalk it up to my being a self-righteous and pretentious newspaper and magazine journalist—although, deep down, I know it could certainly be because of my fear of judgment in the face of vulnerability, which is something I imagine people who write poetry have never felt. Regardless of the reason, there’s a small part of me that holds contempt for those who are brave enough to share the inner workings of their minds with others. And so I walk into my first meeting with Burr moderately jaded, a little nervous . . . and very intimidated.

My unjustified assumptions about Burr are deflated as soon as I realize I’ve failed to notice him sitting at the bar when I walk into Portsmouth’s Loaded Question Brewing Company—even despite his bright purple blazer and statement neck scarf and his tiny notebook, which he is hunched over while nursing a beer, obviously scribbling something weighty and seminal as I breeze by him, searching for a table near an electrical outlet for my dying computer. I only notice him after I set down my belongings and make my way to the bar to order my first beer. I know as soon as I introduce myself and look into his eyes that this person is not at all who I was expecting him to be. 

Burr is somewhat of a Seacoast-area celebrity. The 30-year-old grew up here, he’s a bartender at The Press Room, and he’s the frontman of Myles Burr & The Last Straws, a musical quintet made up of Patrick Rowan, on bass; Maddoc Johnson, on the keyboard, piano, and trumpet; Ben Wellwood, on guitar; Nate Gruen, on the drums; and Burr, who does spoken word over the music. Portsmouth is where Burr started dabbling in poetry, in a high school English class. It’s where he performed his first poem at a Press Room open mic night almost ten years ago. It’s where he was shaped by his artist mother, who specialized in making collages and stained glass. The reason Burr gravitates toward freeform poetry, he thinks, is partially indebted to growing up around his mom’s art—creations composed of small, abstract pieces that come together to make a beautiful whole. 

The small, abstract thoughts that make up Burr’s compositions are always getting scribbled down in some notebook or on his typewriter. He prefers using these kinds of analog tools since it makes it harder to delete things that he writes down. “If I get frustrated and delete something off of a computer, I’ll never get it back,” Burr says. “It could have been special. If I write it in a notebook, even if I try to scribble something out, I can flip back and find it later.” Before I sat down with him, he’d scribbled down “Slick floors and sticky shoes.” He’d thought of that line as he was walking to our interview, when the bottoms of his boots, coated with spilled beer and liquor from his last shift at the bar, made squeaking sounds as he walked along the wet pavement. He gets words and phrases like this one stuck in his head every day. Some of the phrases he writes down are inspired by conversations he has while working at the bar. Drunk customers’ stories turn into inspiration for poems. Burr lives entirely in the moment, it seems—observing every detail around him, taking inspiration from it, and writing it all down stream-of-consciousness-style. “Free writing and uncensored thoughts are the most honest form of poetry,” he says. “I have a hard time going back and editing my work because it’s all important and everything holds its own weight. Raw thoughts and emotions are way more powerful.”

I saw one of Burr’s performances in November, at The Press Room. He recited one of his newest works, “Running Through a Graveyard of My Own Making.”

Her teeth shined bright from behind the shrine. 

Angelic brilliance and chimney red eyes. 

I see no difference between a monk and an anchorite. 

They’re both lonely searching for divinity. 

Sulfur is always in the air. 

The smell of our demise. 

The smell of Hades. 

The smell of the end. 

A judgmental entity follows close behind. 

The shadow of death. 

A body is a terrible thing to waste. 

Smoking feverishly, turning fingers yellow. 

How will I find the way towards the light if my eyes have been gouged from my skull?...

He read these first few lines loudly into the microphone, over the upbeat jazz played by his band. He delivers these words, despite their morbidness, without great sadness or fear. He’s having a conversation with his audience about the pervasiveness and omnipresence of death, as if those listening to him aren’t complete strangers. He’s dressed the part of the performer—shirtless, with an open white jacket and gold chains, fingernails painted black. But when he speaks, his eyes close as he leans into the microphone and feels the improvised music vibrating around him, and he seems less like a performer and more like a clever friend. His vulnerability is captivating. His words feel personal, yet also universally relevant. “The most important thing is that I’m writing with authenticity,” Burr says. “And if I’m not doing that, it’s useless. The audience won’t get it. I want to take out ‘I’ and ‘Me’ to make it accessible—so people feel like I could be talking about them.”

It’s his honesty and humility that surprise me the most about Burr. He’s not ostentatious, like I picture poets to be—he doesn’t bat an eye when I ask elementary questions about poetry styles and lingo. We’re strangers, but he’s chatting about his artistic career with me like we’re old friends. When he tells me about the first performance duo he was part of, I know that there’s nothing he’s trying to hide from me.  

He met Chelsea Paolini, the other half of his first duo, Futon Affair, in 2017. Paolini was playing a solo set at Earth Eagle Brewings, in Portsmouth, singing a Ween song and playing guitar, while Burr was working at the brewery. Impressed by her rendition, he chatted with Paolini and invited her to his next poetry reading. The pair hit it off and began writing music and poetry together – sometimes for twelve hours at a time – before they decided to go on a cross-country tour, in 2018 and early 2019. Paolini played guitar and sang, Burr performed poetry over the music. They performed everywhere from Louisiana to Colorado to California – 14 states in total – for three months, until they ran out of money and returned home. 

Paolini is who taught Burr the brass tacks of being a great performer. Once the frontwoman of psychedelic pop trio People Skills, playing many a sold-out show in early-2010s’ New Hampshire, Paolini’s solo work was a blend of pop-rock and punk, and she was known as one of the Seacoast’s most promising young artists. She took performing seriously, and wasn’t afraid to call Burr out for making mistakes during their sets. Her dedication and sincerity, Burr says, were an inspiration to him. Paolini passed away unexpectedly last year, in her sleep. The confidence and creativity she imprinted upon Burr shines through during his shows and in his work—like he’s carrying on her legacy. 

Burr’s 2018 tour with Paolini was the last time he hit the road. He’d been planning another tour with Joel Carpenter, a fellow poet and the founder of the Underground Writers Association, in Portland, in conjunction with the release of his poetry book, Therapy is Expensive So I Wrote This Book Instead. When the pandemic hit, the tour was canceled. Burr and Carpenter began brainstorming how to make poetry accessible without being able to hold in-person gatherings. They held Instagram Live poetry reading sessions. Then, they began holding poetry readings on the Eastern Promenade, in Portland, which eventually led to the foundation of the poetry collective, Portland Poets Society. While he was working at Earth Eagle, Burr collaborated with the owner, Alex McDonald, to start a recurring poetry-reading series at the bar. It is essential, in Burr’s opinion, to give his community, which is starving for poetry, a platform to share and absorb the artform. “I know a lot of people who are creatives, but don’t identify as creatives,” he says. “I’m always pushing people to express themselves but a lot of people are nervous because they have a fear of judgment.”

Burr says this as though he knows what that fear is like, although you’d never guess that he considers the opinions of others—it’s hard to imagine that the guy who divulges the inner workings of his mind in front of hundred-person crowds while wearing leopard-print button-ups understands social anxiety. But underneath his outer layer of confidence and eccentricity, Burr is down to earth and empathetic—an artist who possesses wisdom beyond his years and wants to share it with others. “I want to push people to express themselves anyway.” 

If you live in Portsmouth, you either already know Burr or you’re destined to. Between his shifts working at the bar, his band’s performances, and pop-up poetry nights around town, Burr and his platforms for poetry are everywhere. He’s already surely one of the Seacoast area’s most impactful artists, but he’s nowhere near finished sharing his art or initiating opportunities for others to do the same. 

Burr’s next collection of poems is set to be published sometime this year. He’s recording a single in collaboration with Portsmouth musician Colin McKenna, titled “Bird Letters,” which will be released on streaming platforms in January. Myles Burr & The Last Straws will be recording their work for streaming platforms early this year, as well. Burr tells me that he’s constantly thinking about his own legacy—about what kinds of messages he wants to leave behind when he’s gone. That’s what keeps him productive. He strives to remain prolific so that his words may reach and inspire others—and so that others may be inspired to share their own creativity with the world. “Art is part of everything and everyone, and there needs to be a platform for it,” he says. “I want to give back to the community. And art brings communities together.”

When Burr and I finish our beers, we pay our tabs and head out to our vehicles (mine a CR-V, his a moped) and he invites me to his poetry reading at Earth Eagle the next day. I find myself disappointed to say that I can’t make it. We say our goodbyes and he scoots off into the distance as I set a reminder on my iPhone to buy a small notebook to keep in my purse—so I can write down my own creative thoughts when inspiration strikes. I laugh at myself when I realize that an hour spent with Myles Burr has turned me into a poet.

Burr’s anthologies, books, and zines can be purchased at his shows or on his website, mylesburr.com. For announcements about future performances, follow Burr’s Instagram, @mylesburr. 

Burr and his band, The Last Straws, in the green room at The Press Room before their performance.