Olivia Harrison will pay tribute to her late husband, George Harrison, in a new book of poetry.
Harrison’s Came the Lightening: Twenty Poems for George will be published this summer by Genesis Publications, just over 20 years since the Beatles guitarist and singer-songwriter died of cancer at 58.
“Came the Lightening sees Olivia reflect upon her life with George, examining the intimacy of the emotional bond in their relationship through a memorable series of poems,” the publisher says. “She delves into the phenomenon of losing a partner and the passage of time.”
Olivia and George Harrison met when she worked for A&M Records, which distributed the former Beatle’s Dark Horse record label. They married in 1978. In 1999, she fought off an intruder who had broken into their home and stabbed George Harrison more than 40 times.
She now serves as a director of the Material World Foundation, the charity that George Harrison founded in 1973.
The book features an introduction by filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who said in a statement, “Olivia evokes the most fleeting gestures and instants, plucked from the flow of time and memory and felt through her choice of words and the overall rhythm....She might have done an oral history or a memoir. Instead, she composed a work of poetic autobiography.”
Came the Lightening is slated for publication on June 21.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
