Ever glamorous LA girl, Lana Del Rey has released a poetry book you didn't know you wanted.
I'm not really a poetry person myself, but I am one of the many people completely enamoured by Del Rey's evocative lyrical stylings and brand of Americana nostalgia - so I'll buy just about anything she puts her name on, and this book is certainly no different.
It's called Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass and it's a collection of 30 of her original poems alongside original photography. The cover features an illustrations of a lemon tree, one which conjures visions of limoncello-filled Sorrento summers. It's exactly the kind of thing I long to have on my coffee table. But if you're not a hardcover type of person, there's an ebook available too.
Naturally, the book is accompanied by an audiobook which features Del Rey reading her poems against music from Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Jack Antonoff. She's designed this to be both and auditory and visual experience.
"Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic," she wrote of the book on her website.
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If you're not already sold on this project, you should know that it supports a very worthwhile cause. Half of the proceeds will go to benefiting Native American organisations, specifically the Navajo Water Project. Del Rey gave more detail on this in a post on her Instagram:
"Also you should know about -
1 in 3 Navajo still don’t have a sink or a toilet. That means 1/3 of Navajo families haul water home every day. They pay 67 x more for the water they haul vs. piped water.
Access to running water has become more important than ever during the COVID-19 crisis. In May, the infection rate in the Navajo Nation — at roughly 2,500 per 100,000 residents — surpassed that of New York.
The Navajo Water Project brings clean, hot and cold running water to families across New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. The installation of a water and solar system takes just 24 hours from start to finish.
The Navajo Water Project has a fundraising target of $1,035,000 for 2020 to bring running water and solar power to 230 families. And we plan on fulfilling that target in the next 4 weeks to bring it up to their million dollar mark, and we’ll be traveling throughout New Mexico Arizona and Utah to say hello and make sure it gets done.
The Navajo Water Project is Indigenous-led, and registered as an official enterprise on the Navajo Nation. Their work creates meaningful, high-paying jobs, many with benefits like 100% employer-paid health coverage."
A very worthwhile cause indeed.
The audiobook will be available from July 28 and the hardcover and ebooks will be out on September 29.
Fans of her music will also be excited to know that she's hinted her new album will arrive in September too. It's apparently called Chemtrails over the Country Club - very true to form.
