"Pagan Poetry" is a song recorded by Icelandic singer Björk for her fourth studio album Vespertine (2001). It was released as the second single from the album on 5 November 2001, by One Little Indian Records. A moderate commercial success, the single peaked at number 38 in the United Kingdom and number 15 in Canada. Writing and recording Björk had always wanted to work with music boxes, but was waiting for the right occasion. Until then, she had been collecting them and wanted to write her own songs in them. According to her, the music box company were not very excited in the beginning. "They'd made wooden boxes for eons and I wanted see-through plexiglass. They couldn't get their head round it - they were like 'Why?' They wanted to make the plonky sound softer with wood but I wanted it as hard as possible, like it was frozen. In the end, they said it was the best thing they'd ever done". Björk then featured the music box into the song's composition. The song is written and recorded in C sharp minor. Critical reception Heather Phares of AllMusic said of "Pagan Poetry" that it "shares a spacious serenity with the album's quietest moments" and included this song as a track pick. Rolling Stone said, "In 'Pagan Poetry', she deploys the implied heaven of Zeena Parkins harp and a flotilla of music boxes with an Asian-teahouse touch". Blender said "'Pagan Poetry' sounds like the prelude to a particularly exotic sexual interlude". Saul Campbell from 7 magazine called the track "terrifying" and an album standout. In March 2006, on the Spanish edition of Rolling Stone, "Pagan Poetry" was ranked number 38 by Spanish music professionals and experts on a list of the best songs of the 21st century. Pitchfork placed the song at number 227 on its list of "The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s". Music video The accompanying music video for "Pagan Poetry" was directed by Nick Knight, who had previously photographed the cover image for her third studio album Homogenic (1997). The video is described as being about "a woman preparing herself for marriage and for her lover". It features highly blurry and stylized images of explicit sex from Björk's personal footage, including fellatio and ejaculation, and images of large needles sewing pearls to skin. The second half of the video features Björk in a dress designed by Alexander