Poetry and Music Pairings: Harry Styles Edition
Image via Columbia Records
Harry Styles’s latest album, Harry’s House, is already breaking records: The album sold more vinyl copies than any other in the past three decades. And fans have streamed it on Spotify more than 240 million times. With Harry’s House, which Styles released in late May, the beloved artist builds upon the success of earlier breakout hits like “Watermelon Sugar” and “Sign of the Times,” similarly taking listeners on a journey of highs and lows, depicting infatuation, seduction, and loneliness. Fans love Styles’s music for its sense of intimacy and whimsy, characteristics they’ll also appreciate in these three poetry collections.
1. Harry Styles and 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse by Karyna McGlynn
When Styles released his self-titled debut album, fans and reviewers quickly noted the influence of Britpop and—more specifically—nods to the 1970s and 1980s. Karyna McGlynn’s latest collection, 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse, harkens back to the same time period, leaning into the flamboyance and psychedelia that Styles’s work has come to embody. Like Harry Styles, Glynn’s 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse—which pays tribute to another iconic musician—discovers how the past can creatively shape the present.
2. Fine Line and I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do) by Tatiana Ryckman
Despite the chart-topping success of joyful, standout singles like “Watermelon Sugar” and “Adore You,” Fine Line is Styles’s breakup album. Inspired by the end of a relationship and filled with what Styles’s called his “toughest, most soulful” material, Fine Line shows someone lingering in a reflective, vulnerable state, revisiting every moment from a past relationship. Tatiana Ryckman’s I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do), a collection of confessional prose poetry, occupies this same mindset. Ryckman chronicles both the big moments—like fights and ill-fated calls to an ex—alongside the small, like depicting what it’s like to go to the grocery store or walk through the park while heartbroken.
3. Harry’s House and Home: 100 Poems
As its title suggests, Harry’s House is meant to evoke the concepts of home, daily routine, and domesticity. Styles summed up the album with this question: “It’s a day in my house, what do I go through?” Following this theme, the album leads listeners through many different rooms—all relating to different emotions and experiences. The anthology Home: 100 Poems also explores what home means, looking at the space and concept through the eyes of a diverse range of poets.
Looking for more poetry and music pairings? Check out our Taylor Swift edition.
