7 Taylor Swift as Poet

Taylor Swift released an album in April 2024 titled The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) with the tagline of “All’s fair in love and poetry.” It sold 1.4 million copies in the first day and was Spotify’s most pre-saved album ever before it was released. Swift broke her own record by selling 1.5 million copies of TTPD in the first week. It was the first album on Spotify to gain more than 300 million streams in a single day and became the most streamed Spotify album less than 12 hours after it was released. The album highlights the latest era of Swift’s life and references many well-known literary figures, making allusions to them and their work. They include Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith, Robert Frost, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Louisa May Alcott, and Frances Hodgson Burnett, among others.

Swift is an expert at putting her thoughts, feelings, and experiences into songs and using poetic devices and prose to connect with her audience and prompt them to experience identification. She articulates what her audience has experienced, and listening to her music gives fans a chance to undergo catharsis. Swift released her debut album when she was sixteen years old. Her lyrics have never been vague or private; her personal life and all of the troubles that come from growing up as a girl have been on full display. Sharing these experiences has created a worldwide group of fans who relate to her. The confessional nature of her lyrics speaks to the universal, as they reflect the emotions of so many of her listeners. While traditionally a confession would be private, Swift has embraced the spirit of confessional poetry and shared her most intimate feelings publicly.

In general, poetry can be classified as confessional when it encompasses the following elements: autobiographical content, first-person narrative, intimate tone, vulnerable emotions, and lyrical language (Sykes, 2022, p. 380). This seems to describe most of Swift’s catalog. Her lyrics tell intimate stories about her life and confront difficult emotional experiences. She does so with poetic language, using allusions, symbolism, rhyme, and double-meanings. For example, on the cover of TTPD, Swift wears lingerie, pointing to the vulnerability she’s releasing in the album. It brings to mind a bare, raw version of herself. In the alternate album covers, she’s seen either in under garments (only her bra showing) or from her bare shoulders up. This vulnerability foreshadowed in album images prepares listeners for the emotionality (and maturity) of the album before even hearing the music.

The confessional has several modes and was originally related to religious experiences. In traditional religious practice from a Christian perspective, adherents are expected to confess their sins in order to obtain forgiveness. In the 1960s, confessional poetry emerged as a genre of exploring one’s self, and Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton wrote this type of poetry. “[T]he original confessional poets were all white, middle- or upper-class, and heterosexual, [and] their insistence that trauma and … painful realities of gender and patriarchy were not simply subjects worthy of poems but also experiences that altered the very conditions of poetry have inspired countless others” (“Confessional Poetry,” 2024).

In TTPD, Swift leans into the idea of the religious confessional while exploring and interrogating her own problems and the realities of patriarchy. For example, in “Guilty As Sin?,” she writes of a feverish sexy fantasy she’s having while connecting it to Christian symbols and ideology. Using lyrics like “what if I roll the stone away? / They’re gonna crucify me anyway / What if the way you hold me / Is actually what’s holy,” she explicates sexual desires and fantasies and makes allusions to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. She asks, “How can I be guilty as sin?” and confesses “I chose you and me / …. Religiously.” These references to religion lay bare her “unholy” thoughts and desires in the mode of confession. She ends the song by asking, “Am I allowed to cry?” This emotion does not seem to be related to sorrow for her “sins,” but instead a rhetorical question about whether or not she can feel sorry for herself or feel upset about a situation that deeply affected her.

The religious undertones aren’t limited to one song on Swift’s TTPD album. In “But Daddy I Love Him,” she wrote about religious expectations as unattainable and how the judgment of Christians can be suffocating. The song, with allusions to women in The Holy Bible, says, “Sarahs and Hannahs in their Sunday best / Clutching their pearls, sighing ‘What a mess’ / I just learned these people try and save you / … cause they hate you.” The song unpacks how her whole life was laid out for her, but all she wanted to do was rebel against it because she didn’t believe it. The line “I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing” has multiple layers of Christian symbolism. Vipers are a classification of snakes, which are often used in biblical teachings as the embodiment of Satan, who tempts and sways believers from making the right choices, like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Such imagery, describing those who are religious and saying they are “dressed in empath’s clothing” (similar to a wolf in sheep’s clothing), reveals that not everyone who says they have the best intentions actually do. The song calls out hypocrisy: “God save the most judgmental creeps / Who say they want what’s best for me / Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see.” We see how disingenuous it is when people preach but don’t follow their own teachings, or those of Christ, for that matter. The sermons are hollow, and the speaker, presumably Swift herself, doesn’t care to let them impact her or the way she views herself. Swift grew up with Christian values and beliefs, so this song feels like a confession of religious deconstruction and a way to embrace agency.

Christian symbolism in TTPD continues in “The Prophecy.” A prophecy is a prediction made, typically with a religious connotation. The song says, “I got cursed like Eve got bitten,” which again brings to mind Eve in the Garden of Eden. Eve did not get bitten by the snake, but rather she chose to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, a fruit God had forbidden Eve and Adam from eating. In Christian tradition and from this perspective, Eve then was the first person to seek knowledge. Swift uses the imagery of Eve and being cursed with the recognition of her own part in it. Eve was never bitten; she did the biting. Similarly, Swift was never cursed; she created her own situations. Nevertheless, the consequences haunt her and she begs for them to be taken. The chorus says, “Please / I’ve been on my knees / Change the prophecy.” The imagery of being on one’s knees calls to mind prayer or begging. Swift begs and pleads throughout the song for the prophecy to be changed; for her this means “Just someone who wants my company.” She wants ordinary love, but she has sealed her fate by creating a world in which she is well-known, rich, and famous. This confession feels intimate and allows the audience to see past the success she has or the relationships she has been in. We instead view the reality she has found herself in, which feels like a curse. Using religiously charged lyrics, Swift engages in confession as a way of connecting with her listeners and divulging her insecurities and feelings.

Swift’s “Anti-Hero” from the Midnights album and its accompanying music video also function as confessional forms of communication. In the first seconds, she is facing the camera and telling us how she feels. There are many moments of fear and feeling like an outsider portrayed in the video. One version of her is somber and mellow, while the other, who shows up at the door, seems to represent the less-inhibited version of Swift. She tells the truth and is dressed like a circus performer. In some ways, confession creates awareness, and this requires seeing one’s self truthfully and from different angles. Swift’s feelings of inadequacy are poeticized as a “monster on the hill,” and her large unwieldy body in the video has similarities to the changes Alice experiences in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) by Lewis Carroll. Three versions of Swift are brought together at the close of the video, representing how the confessional synthesizes different parts of us. The three versions of Swift are drinking together, and often people become more talkative or confessional when imbibing.

The song has become a favorite of fans, as “Anti-Hero” focuses on the negative and insecure thoughts Swift has. Vulnerability and interiority are what makes Swift’s work so relatable, and the song humanizes Swift by revealing her doubts and anxieties. The lyrics say, “I should not be left to my own devices / They come with prices and vices / I end up in crisis (tale as old as time).” This building of events based on feelings is familiar to many fans who have had similar experiences. Swift has learned her lessons of taking responsibility for her actions and paying the price for becoming too indulgent or making mistakes. The self-deprecating words of “Anti-Hero” may cause listeners to reflect on their own mistakes. She sings, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.” This statement takes ownership of messing up and functions as a confession of her “sins.” It could also insinuate some kind of growth, especially since confessing can be about catharsis and moving forward in better ways.

Also confessional, but mostly focused on romantic love, is the work of ancient Greek poet Sappho, who seems to have laid a foundation for Swift. Both women write about love and the complexities of relationships. They use imagery and comparison and first-person narration. We once described love poetry, especially from a queer point of view, as Sapphic but we can now use the term Swiftian to describe lyricism and personal love stories told in poetic and musical form. Lines from Sappho’s work seem to be echoed in Swift’s songs, and many connections can be made between the poetic artistry of both women.

The performative aspect of poetry is important and embodied in Swift’s work as well. Hearing an author read their work or watching Swift perform live is to experience art. “In a live reading, the poetic soul lingers in the spaces and silences, understanding that language is a dance between what is said and unsaid” (Coffey, 2023). Performed poetry can be an immersive experience that engages the body through senses and the mind through imagery and language. The Eras Tour is an immersive poetic experience, as Swift has a way of making her fans feel included, involved in the performance, and intimately connected with the art. Fans make friendship bracelets and trade them, and these bracelets feature words and phrases from Swift’s music. They become a vehicle for sharing micro poetry. Light up bracelets given to each fan at The Eras Tour also create a sense of visual poetry, as every bracelet works together during the show to create shapes and patterns of light within the crowd to expand the show beyond the stage. Including her fans is a key factor in Swift’s performance, and she entertains upwards of 50,000 people each night of the show.

From a broad point of view, each of Swift’s eras in the show are confessions. They are confessions of her life and relevant to the different stages. Confessional poetry is the basis of her entire career, as all albums point to her writing lyrics based on experiences. Things were simple and fairytale-like in her earlier years, and more recent albums show her process of maturing and the end of the fairytale when the clock strikes twelve on her Midnights album. In fact, she starts The Eras Tour with a clock that strikes midnight before she makes an appearance on stage. Every piece of her career has been a form of poetry and art, and they connect to tell the story of a life. This autobiographical nature of Swift’s work is an important feature of the confessional.

Imagery is another key aspect of poetry, as it draws readers into a sensory experience. Swift often utilizes imagery referencing nature, color, and locations. Poets use many devices, such as metaphor, alliteration, repetition, rhyme, simile, symbolism, and allusion, when writing. Songwriters similarly use these tools. Swift rarely names the subjects of her songs and/or albums; she instead focuses on her experience and uses imagery and literary devices to convey a feeling. Swiftie sleuths are often able to dissect the meanings, engaging in complex literary analysis to do so. Finding hidden meanings behind numbers and colors is something Swifties get excited about, and Swift herself has mentioned her love for leaving easter eggs within her music as a way to communicate with her fans. Also literary is the narrative form Swift’s music has embraced more and more since 2020. The folklore and evermore albums have many narrative threads running through them (e.g. “betty,” “august,” “cardigan,” and “No Body, No Crime”). These albums tell fictional stories in which Swift experiments with writing that is not autobiographical.

Finally, in case there is any question of whether or not Swift is a poet, many professors and writers have argued just that. Harvard Professor Stephanie Burt said, “Swift belonged to poetic traditions … She seemed to be inspired by ‘Wordsworthian romanticism, Burnsian lyricism’” (Kaiser, 2024). Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate said he had one of “the best nights of my life at her concert” and found connections between Swift and the Romantic poets (William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley) and writers like Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre (1847) (Bate, 2023). In fact, Swift makes a direct reference to the Romantic British poet Coleridge in the title of her song “The Albatross” on TTPD. People who specialize in literature and words appreciate Swift’s lyricism and art and see the allusions and connections throughout her music. They recognize that she is adding to a long tradition in literary and poetic output.

References

Bate, J.  (4 June 2023). “Why Taylor Swift is a literary giant—by a Shakespeare professor.” The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/why-taylor-swift-is-a-literary-giant-by-a-shakespeare-professor-20230518-p5d9cn.html

Coffey, M. (26 July 2023). Medium.com. “How a Poem Wakes Up to a Live Audience.” https://medium.com/the-howling-owl/how-a-poem-wakes-up-to-a-live-audience-5d6ec9c034af

“Confessional Poetry.” (2024). Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/151109/an-introduction-to-confessional-poetry

Kaiser. (8 February 2024). “What do poets think of Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ title?” Celebitchy. https://www.celebitchy.com/856539/what do poets think of taylor swifts the tortured poets department title/

Swift, T. (2022). Anti-Hero. Midnights.

Swift, T. (2024). But Daddy I Love Him. The Tortured Poets Department.

Swift, T. (2024). Guilty as Sin? The Tortured Poets Department.

Swift, T. (2024). The Prophecy. The Tortured Poets Department.

Sykes, R. (2022). Confessional Poetry, Confessional Pop: Gender, Race, and the Lyric Form in Modern American Writing and Music. In The Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature (pp. 377-386). Routledge.