Came the Lightening
Twenty Poems for George
by Olivia Harrison
(Genesis Publications| $35.00 | Hardcover | 9781905662739 | 104 pages |33 color illus. | June 21, 2022)
Here on the shore, twenty years later, my message in a bottle has reached dry land. Words about our life, his death but mostly love and our journey to the end.
—Olivia Harrison
In Came the Lightening: Twenty Poems for George, author and producer, Olivia Harrison dedicates twenty poems to her late husband George Harrison—lead guitarist of The Beatles—in the 20th anniversary year of his passing.
Came the Lightening is an exploration of Olivia’s relationship with George that is at once intimate, quiet, and powerful. Olivia’s poems transcend time and place to celebrate a love that embraces all of life’s moments, from its soaring peaks to its lonely valleys.
As a contributor to the book Concert for George, the revised edition of I Me Mine as well as penning the bestselling book George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Olivia Harrison is no stranger to writing beautiful words that have an ethereal connection to love. Now, in her first departure from biographical nonfiction, this book of poems is set to become a treasured debut.
In Came the Lightening, Olivia has curated a selection of photographs and mementos to accompany the collection of poems, including never-before-seen pictures of herself and George. Martin Scorsese, a long-time friend, and director of the 2011 documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World has written the foreword that calls the book “an autobiography in both rhyme and reason.” The poems embrace the love between George and Olivia and encourage readers to be graceful with their hearts—when facing death, and grief—as she unveils the sweet and spiritual moments that still exist within. Came the Lightening, Twenty Poems for George is a testament to a love that continues to live on.
OLIVIA TRINIDAD HARRISON is a film producer, and the widow of musician George Harrison of the Beatles. She first worked in the music industry in Los Angeles, for A&M Records, where she met George and then helped run his Dark Horse record label.
Olivia co-produced the Grammy award-winning film of the 2002 Concert for George which she organized in memory of George. Olivia also received an Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Special from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2012 for her role as producer on the Martin Scorsese-directed documentary: George Harrison: Living in the Material World. Olivia is a producer on the multi-award nominated “The Beatles: Get Back.” In late 2005, coinciding with the reissue of the album and film from the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, Olivia established The George Harrison Fund for UNICEF with an initial focus on programs in Bangladesh. The fund had also assisted children affected by civil conflict, natural disasters or poverty in Afghanistan, Brazil, India, Angola, Romania, the Horn of Africa, Burma and Nepal and Mexico.
Olivia is a director of the Material World Foundation, a charity set up by George in 1973, overseeing the Foundation’s ongoing work in encouraging and promoting the exploration of alternate and diverse forms of artistic expression, and philosophies. The Foundation has lent its support to many established charities around the world. Olivia and the Foundation are also partners with Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation to ensure the preservation of film history from across the globe. Restoring such diverse works as Charlie Chaplin’s “The Count” to Mexican classic “Enamorada” to the British “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.”