The singer-songwriter has written an extraordinary narrative poem that glories in the landscape and dialect of her home county. She talks about angst and ageing and treats Kate Kellaway to a personal reading
PJ Harvey is about to read a poem from her new book, Orlam– we are in her publisher’s offices which are strangely empty (are they all working from home?) and have the top floor to ourselves. She is perched daintily on a chair and looks out, at intervals, at a panoramic view of London with Saint Paul’s as its centrepiece. She divides her life these days between London and Dorset, and is wearing familiar, trendy Londoner uniform – all-in-black with plain ankle boots – clothes that give nothing away but draw attention to her face, to her extraordinary hazel eyes and elegant eyebrows that look like bold brushstrokes. Her bow mouth has an enigmatic character as if she judges it wise to keep her best jokes to herself. Her wavy, jet-black hair goes, as it always has done, its own way. She is effortlessly beautiful – in no way manufactured or overdone. The first impression, this morning, is of a shy, warm, natural Dorset girl and it is a stretch to believe that she is also a glorious chameleon of a singer with an international following, one-time muse of Nick Cave and double winner of the Mercury prize – it is an incongruous double-take – as if Patti Smith were revealed to be Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
Yet PJ Harvey is not like anyone else. The photographer Giles Duley, who collaborated on the video for her single The Camp, notes that she “reinvents herself and embraces each new project completely. She is dedicated to her craft. I’ve never seen a more powerful presence on stage.” Michael Morris, associate director of the arts organisation Artangel, with whom she has also worked, goes further: “She is an artist for whom thought, feeling and a powerful sense of place merge to make singular worlds. All artists are explorers, but she ventures into uncharted territory, beyond the foothills of the imagination.” Sasha Frere-Jones, reviewing her last album in the New Yorker, is no more restrained in suggesting that her singing voice is nothing less than “an ambassador for the libido”. It seems unfeasible that PJ Harvey should now be 52 – and it is wonderful to see how undeterred she is by age. She lets slip that she has a new album coming out next year and, although not supposed to be talking about it, allows herself to say: “I’m really pleased with it – and I’m my own harshest critic.”
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