Polly Jean, you are so full of surprises—and not just music videos heavily featuring creepy Punch and Judy puppets! PJ Harvey has just announced that she’s written a book of poetry, The Hollow of the Hand, in collaboration with photographer/filmmaker Seamus Murphy. Pitchfork has the “scoop“:
PJ Harvey has announced her first book: a 224-page collection of images and poetry created in collaboration with… Seamus Murphy, titled The Hollow of the Hand. According to Amazon, the new text arrives October 20, 2015 in the United States (October 8 in the United Kingdom) via Bloomsbury Circus, and was crafted in the wake of her last album, 2011’s Let England Shake. The Hollow of the Hand chronicles the authors’ travels around the world between 2011 and 2014, to locations such as Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington, D.C.
I’m often skeptical when celebrities write books of poetry seemingly out of nowhere—obviously, James Franco is the worst-case scenario here, but I’ve even struggled to get through some of Patti Smith’s poetry, which, while I’m aware is blasphemy, is also the truth—but PJ Harvey is an amazing songwriter, and I support her in all of her creative explorations, and I will probably read this book and enjoy it even if it’s terrible. Will you?
This is why we have public libraries.