Marina Diamandis on How She Learned to Write Poetry and Love LA

Marina Diamandis, the indie-pop singer-songwriter previously known as Marina and the Diamonds, has never been afraid to pursue alternative ventures. She’s dabbled in floral design, studied psychology, and launched a blog where she wrote about topics surrounding mental health. Now, she’s releasing her debut poetry collection, Eat the World (Penguin Life), out on October 29.

The book chronicles Diamandis’s late teens through her mid-30s, revisiting past wounds with her distinctive wit and the rich symbolism that is a cornerstone of her lyrical style. The collection blends introspection with storytelling, offering readers insight on her state of mind before fame and during much of her musical career.

“The first half of the book was over a monthlong period. I had done a shroom trip. I’ve done a bunch in my life, but for some reason, that one inspired me to start to write in a different way,” she recently told Vanity Fair. “I had quit social media for a minute, and I had a lot of stillness, which is a necessary place to write from for music and poetry. The rest of it was gradually done over a year. I would go back to old poems and try and make them appear differently on the page, and see how that affected how I read them.”

From her home in Los Angeles, Diamandis spoke to VF about the healing properties of poetry, her love of Eve Babitz, and her next record.

‘Eat the World’ by Marina Diamandis

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Vanity Fair: Before writing your own, did you read poetry?

Marina Diamandis: Honestly, not really at all. I think the only poetry I read was Dorothy Parker when I was reading her books around the Electra Heart period. I was gaining a lot of inspiration from her acidic wit. Now, I do read more. However, it’s a similar approach to music. Before I started writing songs, I was a very pedestrian listener of music. I had grown up in a small village in Wales, and my artists were Madonna and No Doubt. I didn’t know anyone, really, outside of the pop realm. I like doing things without having a prior assumption of how they should be written.

Is poetry now a regular part of your life?

Since the book, I have not wanted to write at all. I’m like, “Will I ever do another book again? I don’t know.” I really did enjoy it, and I do think I will write again, but I think I’m someone who can only focus on one project at a time. As soon as I finished the book, I started writing this next record, and I’ve been deep in that process since.

Are songwriting and writing poems different for you?

So different. I think a lot of people would probably be like, “You’re a lyricist by nature. Of course, you are going to do poetry.” But it’s so radically different. How I express myself in poetry is not based on elements of fantasy. It’s just very much like, “This is exactly what has happened to me.” I think because the format holds such freedom, it frees you up to express in a way that I couldn’t ever see happening with songwriting, which is really why I wrote this book. It wasn’t because I wanted to put a book out, or I wanted to get a publishing deal. It was just so enjoyable for me, and helpful accessing different parts of my memories that I hadn’t touched for many, many years.

In terms of the book itself, are the poems presented in the order in which you wrote them?

It is chronological. I tried to do it based on the emotional arc of a chapter in my life, when I was going through difficulty, which ends with “Cocoon,” and then “Eat the World.” Even though [“Eat the World”] was one of the first ones I wrote, it feels like a finalizing summary of a chapter of my life, really, from my late teens up until my mid-30s. I think the book explores a lot of emotional passions that have held me back, and much like with an album, for me the purpose of making creative work is to try and get through something.

The poems in the book are presented in a visually interesting way, through layout and formatting. You talked about this a little bit, but how involved were you in the design?

Formatting completely, and then the design, I worked closely with a graphic designer called Dominique [Falcone], and she drew a lot of inspiration from vintage photographs, and hand drawn things. The visual element was really important because early on, I started to look at examples of visual poetry on the internet, and one of the main people who did it was this artist and poet called [Ardengo] Soffici. I was just like, “How can I make poetry come alive in a different way for fans of my music who might not usually read poetry, or even read books very much?”

Do you have a favorite poem in the collection? Obviously, you named the book after “Eat the World,” but I’m curious to know if another is particularly important to you.

I think “Cocoon” feels like one of the most important. It’s funny, “Eat the World,” I don’t feel close to emotionally, but maybe that’s just because it was so long ago, and I’m over the subject matter. “Cocoon” was one of the last to be written, and it’s just very symbolic of a chapter that felt very hard to grow through.

There’s a few different experiences of LA described in the collection, from “Aspartame” to “Soft Warning,” and others. I’m curious to know why you’ve decided to live there despite your conflicting feelings about the city?

I know. It’s always been such a contradiction for me. I’ve held this fascination for it for a very long time, before I ever lived here. I think now, living here, I’ve experienced it as such a different city. Being able to drive around just makes you see how beautiful it is. Nature-wise, you’re just in such close proximity to very raw, almost rural natural habitats, which is rare for a city. I think maybe it’s necessary for me to live somewhere I’m not sure how I feel about because it gives me a tension to push against a little bit. It’s definitely my favorite place I’ve ever lived.

“Aspartame” alludes to disordered eating, which I know you’ve talked about briefly on Jameela Jamil’s podcast, and some of your earlier unreleased demos that can be found on YouTube. What made you feel comfortable sharing that experience in another way?

I think it’s just one of those things where a lot of people initially feel shame about it. There’s so much secrecy around having an eating disorder, and because I’m so far away from it now, I don’t really have shame about it. I feel slightly shocked that it even happened, and that I recovered very effectively. What we’re told is that you’ll never fully recover, and I just don’t believe that to be true. For me, the last time that I even felt disordered was around, probably 26 years old. I think having that distance has made me feel okay to talk about it, as well as the realization that so many people still go through this. The power of truth that poetry gives you as a writer just makes it feel easy, and satisfying to explore the more messy, darker, unsavory parts of yourself.

You acknowledge a few writers in the book, notably Eve Babitz, whose writing is also very closely linked to LA. What are some of your favorite works by her?

Yeah, I do love Eve Babitz. I went through a massive period where I read almost all of her work in one year. I really liked how much she referenced nature in her work. I also love how much she was able to conjure that certain time that she lived in, and I think compared to a lot of books of that era, she represents this type of femininity that we’re not really used to. The first [book] I read was Eve’s Hollywood, the one that everyone’s read. LA Woman and Sex and Rage as well.

What are you most looking forward to during your book tour?

Being able to converse with fans in a new way. I think with pop music, there’s a lot of idealizing, and separation between the image of someone and the human side, and I hope this book lessens that chasm. I’m just looking forward to having conversations with people, and hearing about their own experiences on these types of subjects.

You mentioned the new record, and you’ve dipped your toes into performing again, opening for Kylie Minogue this summer. How is the new album coming along?

I’m deep in production. I can’t say that much, but it’s very different. I haven’t made an album like this in a while. It feels very good, but at the same time, I’ve done this enough times where I just can never predict how people are going to feel about things. It’s not an indie record, because I feel like Ancient Dreams was really in [the alternative music] world, but it’s not like Love and Fear. It’s very much its own thing, but it feels very powerful, and very driven. I think that in the last year, just completing this book and recovering from a health issue, it’s put me in a very different place creatively. It just feels like a very fun, bright record.