Pop Star Poet

I was honored and thrilled to write on the poses and poeticism of Lana Del Rey for World Literature Today. Check it out here: Pop Star Poet: The Lyrics of Lana Del Rey.

Most of Del Rey’s songs wrestle with her overlapping roles as an artist and woman, especially as a lover to problematic men. In her early Born to Die and Paradise albums, there is a candy-coated glamour to being the beautiful muse of the wealthy playboy, a relationship Del Rey depicts with a girlish delight (“Off to the Races” and “Cola”), which sits side by side with a sort of self-destructive plea for salvation from the emptiness of it all (“Born to Die” and “Ride”).

“Pop Star Poet: The Lyrics of Lana Del Rey”, World Literature Today