Lou Reed was a musician, songwriter, and photographer. He was best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of the Velvet Underground and for his solo career, which spanned several decades. Mentored by poet Delmore Schwartz while a student at Syracuse University, Reed wrote the foreword to Schwartz's In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories (2012).
Reed’s collection of poetry and prose, Do Angels Need a Haircut, was published posthumously in 2018. The volume, comprising poems and short stories written in the early 1970s, also gathered photographs and other ephemera from Reed’s early career, including audio from a 1971 St. Mark’s Church reading. According to Will Hermes in Rolling Stone, the work situates Reed in the lineage of Beat and second-generation New York School poets and poetry. Poet Anne Waldman wrote the foreword and musician, performance artist, and Reed’s widow, Laurie Anderson, contributed an afterword.