★★★☆☆
Our prima donna girl is back—but not in the way you’d expect. Widely known as Marina and the Diamonds or MARINA, Marina Lambrini Diamandis published her first collection of poems, Eat the World: A Collection of Poems on Oct. 29.
The Electra Heart pop icon rose to fame in the early 2010s for her celebrated songs “Primadonna,” “How to Be a Heartbreaker,” and “Bubblegum B—h.” Her new work, different from the albums she’s released before, has received reactions ranging from admiration for her introspective themes to some mixed reviews on its overall impact.
In recent years, we’ve seen a trend of musicians stepping into the literary world, often through poetry. Artists like Lana Del Rey, with her collection Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, have experimented with verse, though not always with the same success they’ve found in music.
Diamandis’s debut poetry book, Eat the World, follows a similar trajectory. Diamandis explained over social media that this new work was initially written to become songs, yet felt that they didn’t capture the essence of her usual work.
“At first I thought they were songs, so I tried to box them into their usual structures, but they refused to obey,” the Welsh artist writes in her book’s introduction. “They seemed to want to expand and unfurl into their own shapes, so I put them aside and laid them to rest.”
The cover design, bright pink and vibrant orange with enchanting black and white graphics, enticed me as soon as I saw it, and I knew I had to get my hands on it. This design echoes the introspective undertones in Diamandis’ poetry, which delves into personal struggles, relationships, and resilience.
The cover invites the reader into a piece of the singer’s mind, and we learn about the subjects she struggled with in her youth: her battle with eating disorders, her constant yearning to be loved as a dominant desire, and how she feels about her current home of L.A.
Although truly eager to see the first step in Diamandis’s poetic journey, The book doesn’t fully meet expectations, despite being anticipated for its promised introspection and emotional depth. While the raw quality of the poetry captures this intention, many of the poems still bear the fragmented feel of unstructured thoughts.
Far from the connection I’ve had with her song lyrics, Marina’s poetry felt a bit forced and not as deep as it was made out to be. The subject matter was deeply personal, but I would have loved to see her writing more fleshed out. Her work felt sloppy and wasn’t inherently poetic, just her moving around words across the page. Some lines felt unnecessary and the metaphors felt juvenile, like that of a middle-school art project.
“Looking for a slice of brie, for what we need is melted cheese” Diamandis wrote in a poem titled “Moon Rock.”
The actual poetry formatting is fun, with words sprawled across the pages, but the writing structure lacks depth, and overall many of the poems feel unfinished. Line breaks and spacing felt random, and I felt like the format was purposefully played with more to distract from the lack of substance. Many words were randomly capitalized and there were pauses that didn’t seem to add any depth to the poem.
Not all parts of the book fell flat, however, and I did find myself enjoying a few in the first half. The first half of the book was enthralling, my favorite poem being “Sex Robot” which combines the aesthetic graphics with a poem that acts as a critique of the patriarchal society and her experience with it. She writes on her experiences with men who treat “women like rag dolls” and who like “to be dominated by sex robots with six-packs that came pre-inflated.”
In another poem, “Soft Warning,” she gives the reader insight into what her experience has been living in Los Angeles. Personifying it, she refers to the City of Angels as “her,” repeating the line “I love her but she makes me nervous” and “I know it’s unsustainable to live here–cruel to take her last drops of water for our swimming pools.”
She continues this theme of home in the next poem, “Land of Limbs,” critiquing “the town of transplants” for its superficiality while still claiming it as her home.
“I am one of her children now too … I’ve been adopted / No longer lost / I’ve been co-opted / By a Town of transplants / A city of saplings and a Land of amputated limbs,” she writes.
As for the art and aesthetics of the book, I truly enjoyed the designs she implemented. I loved flipping the pages—or maybe I was just trying to reach the end of the book. The graphics were very retro-futuristic, and the style of publishing makes some of them extra distorted, which added a nice touch to the book as a whole.
Flat and unfilling at times, the book did have its highlights. I recommend this book to MARINA fans who enjoy her style and work, those who enjoy coffee table books, and anyone who is looking for an easy introduction to reading poetry. I only plan on keeping this book as decoration for now, but keep an open mind to see if she continues her journey in the literary world.
