Arlo Parks has been writing poetry all of her life.
An inspiration and influence since childhood, it’s a precious part of her songwriting process – many tracks from her debut album (and lockdown classic) Collapsed In Sunbeams started out as poems, in fact.
Now, the singer-songwriter is officially a published poet, with her first collection The Magic Border in bookshops now. She describes her poetry as a place of unbridled energy, that she previously kept private. But now, she's opening up.
On what would have been the star's 40th birthday.
After taking a break from touring last year, Arlo is back on the road with new boundaries and a second album, My Soft Machine, which explores different facets of love, as well as the struggles she had balancing touring and working with her own inner peace. Her track I’m Sorry contains a poetry reading from the singing describing “working incessantly, like a wasp, feeling trapped and crazed”.
Arlo spoke to GLAMOUR about the freedom and chaos poetry writing brings her, finding her limits and why being unapologetic, unashamed and unrelenting is what drives her.
How do you feel about The Magic Border coming out? Nervous? Excited?
I think it's completely a mixture. It’s been something that I've wanted to do since I was a kid. So to be able to finally hold the book in my hands and go rooting around Waterstones on the day that it comes out really feels like a big moment for me.
You said you wanted readers to “drink black coffee and call your sister” about the book, and “find protection or familiarity or love” in its pages. Is the poetry all about finding connection?
I think my favourite pieces of work – my favourite books and songs – are ones that bring me back to myself and have this kind of grounding quality.
There's something about hearing a song or reading a book, and then you're like, “oh, I have to buy this for this person for Christmas, or “oh, I just have to talk to this person about it”. My music or my words, I guess, being something that bonds people together is a really beautiful idea.
What are the differences you’ve found, if any, between writing poetry and your songwriting process?
With poetry, I don't really focus so much on form and structure, it's something that's a lot more free, flowing and intuitive. With songwriting, you're formatting it into a traditional song structure, and you have to condense these really big ideas, memories, stories and relationships into something that's quite concise. I think with poetry you can just be a little bit more free – it feels like a little bit more of a stream of consciousness.
Is that therapeutic for you?
Definitely. I think there's something nice about having a feeling that feels so huge and knotted and being able to condense it into its essence. And that's what songwriting is, for me. But then with poetry, that sense of being able to be free and chaotic when discussing something and just being able to have that looseness – it’s a beautiful chaos to me.
And you wrote a lot of this poetry while you were touring. What was that like for you?
Yeah it became something that I would return to when I was on the road. I was mainly working on it in green rooms. It was my grounding practice – I would wake up in a new city, I would open my notebook and jot down a few words. And it was my way of kind of feeling home because I think when I'm creating things I feel at home. And it brings me back to myself.
On your latest album My Soft Machine you’ve written a lot about love. What was that like to interrogate?
I mean, I do feel like love is kind of at the centre of my craft. There was something really beautiful about exploring different forms of love, because a lot of the love that I write about is platonic love. The romance that seeps its way into friendships and the sense of care isn’t honoured enough in art.
You took a break from touring last year – what was that like, drawing new boundaries with your work?
I think it taught me a lot about where I'm happiest and where my limits lie. It really put me in touch with listening to my body, because I have the tendency to not really check in with myself a lot. I found myself exhausted by accident, by not noticing that I'm running on fumes, and then suddenly, the engine wouldn’t go and I’m like, “why is this happening?”
Now, I try to make sure I'm journaling, that no matter what I'm always creating space in my daily life for something that is just for me. I think to have a long career, you have to take things incrementally. Having these enormous spikes of work, and then having a big crash just isn't sustainable.
Lots of musicians seem to be taking breaks from touring to take better care of themselves, from Wet Leg and Sam Fender to Lewis Capaldi. Is it easy to take that pressure off, especially when you’re starting out?
I found myself in the position where exciting things were being presented to me, and obviously I wanted to do them, I wanted to do everything. Now, especially with me and other artists in my orbit taking time for themselves, I hope that people realise – especially younger artists – that you don't have to do everything. You need to listen to yourself.
I hope that is something that becomes more of a philosophy for all artists, the fact that no matter how big or small of an artist you are, you should never be unhappy when you're doing what you do, because you've got into it for the love.
What do you do to keep yourself centred with the chaos of writing and touring?
Staying in touch with people’s lives outside the touring bubble, because you can very much become trapped in that way. I also love being an eternal student of things. I taught myself how to DJ as well, and I'm learning to write for film – I’d love to do a screenplay one day. I need to feel like I'm growing and learning.
You collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers on your new album and have spoken out about your friendship – how important is that sense of female solidarity in such a competitive industry?
I know that it's a competitive industry, but I've never really felt that with anyone around me. I think especially with Phoebe and the boygenius guys, Lorde and other people in the indie community, we're always just flinging poems and podcasts back forth. Just checking in with one another. It’s a very positive support system, especially if someone's on a long tour.
And that's one of my favourite things about making music – the fact that I get to learn from other musicians and even people with different art forms. People around you that are nourishing your spirit and also taking care of you is really nice.
You’ve been in the industry for a few years now, and there’s been talk of the need for a wider #MeToo movement within music. Have you seen shifts in terms of more empowerment of women?
I definitely think so. I'm very privileged to live in a place where people feel like they can voice when there has been injustice taking place. That sense of camaraderie between women, of supporting one another and listening to victims and spotlighting injustice in that way – I feel like that is continuing. And I don't think we're there yet. I hope that it's something that keeps developing over the years.
But I think definitely, from my perspective, there is this sense of people – women especially – rallying together, and whether that's providing support behind the scenes or, more in an activist space or in a grassroots way. I just feel the strength and I feel the connection. We're making steps, we’re not there yet. But I do see steps and that makes me hopeful.
What is empowering to you?
Making efforts to discover people who are creating things that are unapologetic about their identity and seeing that make their way into their work is something that empowers me so much to continue on my trajectory of creating things that feel good to me. Like Cheryl Dune, who directed, wrote and starred in one of the first ever films about the Black lesbian experience (The Watermelon Woman), and Carrie Mae Weems, one of the first Black women to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim.
People who are being completely themselves and unashamed about speaking out give me confidence to be unrelenting in speaking my truth and and being myself. The first poem in my collection, for example, goes against the legacy of the queer experience being marked by turmoil and suffering, and choosing joy and choosing to challenge what has come before.
It’s empowering seeing people’s reactions to my work trickling in, saying “I thought I was alone in feeling this”. It’s about creating something that makes people feel seen in their lives – with songs like Black Dog or Eugene or a poetry book that they can carry in their bag which creates community around itself.
That’s bigger than me, so it gives me the courage to keep doing it.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Arlo’s poetry collection The Magic Border is available to buy now.
