Lana Del Rey has released the audiobook version of her new poetry collection Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. Read by Del Rey, the project also features music from her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff. It’s out now via Interscope and available for purchase. Check out the sample track “LA Who Am I To Love You” below.
The singer announced Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass in December. The hardcover and ebook versions will come out September 29, with CDs and LPs arriving a few days later on October 2. It’s the first of two new poetry projects that Del Rey has shared plans for this year. The other, titled behind the iron gates – insights from an institution, does not yet have a confirmed release date. Del Rey shared a selection titled “patent leather do-over” from that collection in May.
When she announced Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, Del Rey said that half of the proceeds would “benefit Native American organizations around the country, whether it was for preserving their rights or trying to help keep their land intact.” She announced the Navajo Water Project as the beneficiary in July. She said in a follow-up post that her Violet advance would also benefit “different Native American projects,” but she did not provide further clarification.
Del Rey also has a new album reportedly slated for September 5, which she announced in a lengthy Instagram post on May 21. As she wrote about the perception that she “glamorizes abuse,” her comments about artists including Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj, and Cardi B drew criticism on social media. She clarified her comments with another Instagram post on May 23, saying that she had wanted to address “the importance of self advocacy for the more delicate and often dismissed, softer female personality.”
Read Pitchfork’s “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: A Conversation With Lana Del Rey.”