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James Franco to release poetry book

Actor-cum-academic is to put together a selection of his musings

Actor James Franco is planning to publish a book of his poetry.

The book is to be called 'Directing Herbert White' and will be released by independent publisher Graywolf Press in April, 2014, according to the New York Times.

[Related story: James Franco talks about losing the lead in The Master]



The name of the book comes from his experiences directing a short film based on the poem 'Herbert White' by Frank Bidart.

The 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' star said that the poem is 'about my relationship to that poem, Frank’s relationship to the poem as I have learned about it from knowing Frank and the adaptation process [and] how Frank puts so much of himself into the figure of this psycho necrophiliac'.

He added that the other poems in the book are 'a way to blend film and poetry and performance and persona - all the things that I think are related to that poem and that process I went through of adapting that poem'.

Franco is no stranger to academia. He has remained in education throughout his acting career, enrolling in UCLA in 2006 to study creative writing, and later attending Columbia University in New York, the Tisch School of the Arts, Brooklyn College and Yale.

He's also extended his love of literature to is film work, playing writer and poet Allen Ginsberg in the 2010 film 'Howl'.