The phone rings. “Hello?” I say. The voice on the other end responds: “Hello. My name is Björk.” I glance at my notes. There are but four words on the sheet in front of me. They are written in fat red Sharpie ink on an otherwise blank lineless sheet of printer paper:

Talk slow. Listen. Breathe!

I have interviewed other talented artists, worked directly with some of my literary and musical heroes, and have myself been on the other end of such questions probably fifty or sixty times, but I cannot remember, ever, having to remind myself to breathe.

Björk has been a pop star since she was eleven years old. She won a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress award (almost reluctantly) for her work in Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark; collaborated on groundbreaking videos with directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry; cultivated an underground fashion movement; and left in her teenage wake a series of radical Icelandic art collectives and rock bands, the most notorious of which was the Sugarcubes.

Björk is currently in the studio working on the soundtrack for her husband Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9, a film about sculpture which will premiere in Japan. She has also just released a CD benefiting UNICEF which features twenty cover versions of her song “Army of Me” as produced and performed by her fans.

There is a childlike quality to Björk’s voice. Our conversation is in English, and occasionally she struggles to conjure words that match the sophistication, clarity, and frightening intelligence of her Icelandic thought process. She is plainspoken and generous and remarkably present. She is a Surrealist punk prodigy turned grooved-out electronic nature priestess. She is on the phone.

—Jim Roll

I. E. E. CUMMINGS

THE BELIEVER: Can I ask you about the E. E. Cummings influence that shows up in your latest album? You’ve said that Cummings is the first English-speaking poet with whom you really connected. Was there an immediate appeal?

BJÖRK: Well, I sang in my own language for a long time. It wasn’t until after five years of singing that I could actually start to say several very well chosen Icelandic words.And after five more years I could sort of add in some English words. I didn’t really start speaking English until I was about twenty or something. So it’s been a very long journey for me to add words to my music. And then I’m always reading poetry. Especially as a teenager, I was surrounded by poets. The kind of people I hung out with were, like, literature people. I guess they started the first Surrealist movement in Iceland during the punk years. It was...