22. (The East Village and Points Beyond)

A poet living in the East Village launches a write-in campaign for the 1992 Presidential Election. Promising to turn all her “upcoming art events, readings and performances until election day into political events,” she folds her campaign into the tour of a one-woman show titled “Leaving New York” that takes her to 28 States. In a campaign letter she describes how her personal experiences have impelled her to run for office: “I am a 41-year-old American, a female, a lesbian, from a working-class background, a poet, performer and writer making my living pretty exclusively from those activities. I am a taxpayer. I’ve lived the majority of my adult life under the poverty level, without health care. I have never made over $20,000 a year nor have I ever lived in a household where our combined incomes approached that amount. More Americans, far more Americans are like me than George Bush. Why is he ruling the country and our lives?”

(Eileen Myles)