Over the past decade, Lana Del Rey has become one of the most popular alternative artists in the world, enchanting her listeners with lush melodies, lavish aesthetics, and beautifully tragic lyrics. This year she has ventured into a new area of artistry, establishing herself as a poet with her debut poetry collection Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. This poetry collection is Del Rey’s most personal work to date, more so than her lauded 2019 album Norman F*cking Rockwell! Through her poetry, Del Rey opens up about her confidence issues, tumultuous relationships, struggles with alcoholism, and her dismay at the political and natural turmoil currently ravaging the United States.
The influence of Del Rey’s favourite poets is clear when reading Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. Throughout the collection she writes about a desire for freedom and a love of natural surroundings, leading the reader to draw comparisons to the work of Ginsberg and Whitman respectively (she once famously referred to the latter as her “Daddy”). The influence of Plath, explicitly referred to in ‘Bare Feet on Linoleum’, can be seen in the striking rhyming schemes of ‘What Happened When I Left You’ and ‘Past the Bushes Cypress Thriving.’ These poems are meticulously crafted and demonstrate great potential, but at the same time they often feel too derivative of the aforementioned poets. The sense of imitation is exacerbated by Del Rey’s tendency to name-drop these writers throughout her music. Nonetheless, the language employed is beautiful to read.
Del Rey’s poetry really shines when she takes on the role of the storyteller, sharing some of her life experiences in a form closer to the short story. ‘Sportcruiser’ recalls her recent flying and sailing lessons, an attempt to become more independent and confident in her own abilities. Del Rey takes a sailor’s advice to study the wind, writing: “I could picture myself growing a / better sense of which way the wind was blowing and as I did / a tiny bit of deeper trust also began to grow within myself.” ‘Tessa DiPietro’ is another prose-like poem in the collection, as Del Rey recites the life advice she received from her medium: “Singleness of focus is the key to transmission / for an emphasis on developing inner intuition.”
Much of Del Rey’s earlier music centred around a longing to be swept away by epic romance, only to be left wounded and tragically alone. It is refreshing to see a change in her attitude towards romance in this collection. ‘My Bedroom is a Sacred Place Now’ sees Del Rey shed some of the romantic dependency that saturated her earlier albums. She expresses a need for alternative desires, for a relationship with nature and time spent with friends. As she throws herself into the midst of new endeavours, such as her poetry, she finds herself becoming less reliant on a romantic partner: “The more I step into becoming a poet the less / I will fall into being with you.” The overarching sense of relief in this collection is immense, and understandable when we see glimpses of Del Rey’s turbulent life in ‘Thanks to the Locals.’ She shares her experiences of AA meetings and unwanted marriage proposals, offering insights into her past with startling frankness.
Though deeply personal, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is not entirely introspective. Del Rey laments the current affairs of the United States in ‘Paradise is Very Fragile’, expressing dismay at the natural disasters and political tensions which have shaken the nation: “Back in Los Angeles things aren’t looking much better / my tree house that had been standing for 60 years succumbed to the Woolsey fires … Our leader is a megalomaniac and we’ve seen that before / but never because it was what the country deserved.” Del Rey’s music was once enamoured with the idea of the American Dream, but in recent years she (like much of the world) has become increasingly alarmed at the developments taking place across the United States. It will be interesting to see how the events of 2020, both the ongoing pandemic and the upcoming presidential election, impact her future poetry and music.
A great deal of thought has gone into the presentation and release of Del Rey’s first poetry collection. An audiobook of select poems, read by Del Rey with musical accompaniment from Jack Antonoff, was released during the summer. The print edition is filled with Del Rey’s original photography, selected archival photographs by Melissa Catanese, and artwork by Erika Lee Sears. The images depict nature, industry, California, people, all the passions Del Rey alludes to throughout the book. The poems have been presented in their original drafts, typewritten with handwritten edits and annotations. I believe this shows Del Rey’s own outlook on poetry, as a trial-and-error process just as worthy of appreciation as the final product.
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is a gripping read for any fan of Del Rey’s music, and is an impressive, albeit derivative, foray into the world of poetry. Del Rey’s next studio album Chemtrails Over the Country Club is currently delayed, with a December or January release looking most likely. Her second poetry collection, Behind the Iron Gates – Insights from an Institution, is currently due to be published in March 2021 by Simon & Schuster. If this first poetry collection is anything to go by, these upcoming projects will continue to show the evolution of Lana Del Rey, as she delves deeper into her ongoing journey of self-discovery.
