When Lana Del Rey first hinted at a foray into poetry via cryptic Instagram posts my mind went to a line from her last album Norman Fucking Rockwell: ‘Your poetry’s bad and you blame the news’.
One year on she’s about to release an audio book of 14 poems set to music with the printed volume to follow in September: Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. The title conjures up Fitzgerald’s short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair and more obscurely the ethereal Eighties pop of Virginia Astley, love songs to the English countryside. California is Del Rey’s playground; Los Angeles is her town. The setting has been the backdrop throughout five successful albums and is central to the opening poem ‘LA Who Am I To Love You?’
The actor James Franco has said her music reminds him of everything he loves about that city: ‘I am sucked into a long gallery of Los Angeles cult figurines, and cult people, up all night like vampires and biker…