![]() Of course, if she’s “sold her life rights for a big check” she knows why she “can’t sleep at night”. The poems here are poems of self-examination – they’re a dig at herself. ![]() The lines “They say I came from money … and I don’t know why” could be read as self-indulgent and as the words of a celebrity out of touch with reality, but that would be too easy. There are a lot of ideas, some of them nice, but not enough crafting. The truth is always more interesting.Īngela: The technique Del Rey uses here of addressing the city as an estranged lover can be effective, but for me the poem leans too heavily on Del Rey’s stream of consciousness. Same for being in the "middle of nowhere". As far as what falls flat? You shouldn't ever say you came from "nowhere", because that's never true. We hear this in her songs and in these poems. She repeats LA, our collective sobriquet for Los Angeles, a nickname that evokes dreams and desperation. What do you think works well here? What do you think falls flat?īen: I love her use of the poetic device "anaphora", which is repetition. Both are evident here – the address to LA has shades of Ginsberg’s “America”, and the long loose lines and relationship between poet and place is also redolent of both. It's something I love about her, because I love LA, and she helps me love it more.Īngela Clenand: Lana Del Rey cites Allen Ginsberg and Walt Whitman as two of her biggest influences. The tradition of the poetic romanticising and self-mythologising of the "I" always begins with him, at least for me. VICE: Can you identify any poetic traditions or styles Lana is writing in here?īen Fama: I'm getting Walt Whitman. Plus, I love Zach, so why did I do that when I know it won't last? LA, I sold my life rights for a big check and I'm upsetĪnd now I can't sleep at night and I don't know why ![]() LA, I'm upset, I have complaints, listen to meĪnd I didn't even have love, and it's unfair LA, I'm a dreamer, but I'm from nowhere, who am I to dream? She won the Templar Poetry Pamphlet and Collection Competition in 2006, and has since released numerous collections, including And in Here the Menagerie and Room of Thieves.Įxcerpt One, Taken from “LA Who Am I To Love You” For good measure, I also emailed with Scottish poet Angela Cleland, who’s a little less smartphone than Ben. So, I reached out to Ben Fama, the New York City-based poet and author of Deathwish, Cool Memories, as well as the line “I found you/on ” to give his verdict. “I think her editor/ publisher is exploiting her,” said another. “It's not my thing really to be destructively critical,” said one. After some initial interest, several declined to comment once I’d sent them the actual poetry. I asked some professional poets, to find out. Surely I can’t be the only one who gets off to that? “But I’m a poet, goddamnit!” she retorts. Her lover “vapes lightly” next to her, her friends are so fucking tired of her talking about Jim Morrison. It has a lack of workbench polish, for sure, but this is poetry that aspires to be music rather than a message. A lot of the people I’ve shown it to have called it trash.
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