Unseen Lou Reed poems are set to be published in a new book.
Titled Do Angels Need Haircuts?, the book will collect previously-unread poems from the Velvet Underground icon. It will be published this April.
The Guardian reports that only three of the 12 poems and short stories in the collection have been published before.
According to the report, the poems were written during a six-month stint in 1970 when Reed left the cult band and returned to Long Island to to work for his father’s accountancy firm.
The collection will feature an afterword by his widow Laurie Anderson and introductions from Reed himself.
It will also come with recordings of Reed reciting the poems in 1971 at St Mark’s Church in New York, where poet Allen Ginsberg is said to have been in the audience.
You can hear Reed reciting his poems ‘We Are The People’ and ‘Lipstick’ below:
Lou Reed – We Are The People by Anthology Recordings
From the forthcoming book of early poems by Lou Reed – ‘Do Angels Need Haircuts.’ Available April 2018 from Anthology Editions. http://anthology.net/book/do-angels-need-haircuts/ Gathering poems, photographs and ephemera from this era (including previously unreleased audio of the 1971 St. Mark’s Church reading), ‘Do Angels Need Haircuts?’
Lou Reed – Lipstick by Anthology Recordings
From the forthcoming book of early poems by Lou Reed – ‘Do Angels Need Haircuts.’ Available April 2018 from Anthology Editions. anthology.net/book/do-angels-need-haircuts/ Gathering poems, photographs and ephemera from this era (including previously unreleased audio of the 1971 St. Mark’s Church reading), ‘Do Angels Need Haircuts?’
The poems are part of the New York Public Library’s Lou Reed archive.
“Lou was a writer at heart, and during this period he considered giving up music to follow this path,” archivist Don Fleming said.
“Finding Lou’s own cassette tape in the archive, that he recorded at the event, was very exciting because we knew about the reading but had little idea of what he had read. His introductions to the pieces also gave us great insight into his creative process.”
Recently, MGMT discussed how they reached out to Lou Reed with the offer of a collaboration, revealing that he turned them down and even suggested that they should fire their managers.
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