Beyond the Verse - Taylor Swift & Contemporary Poetry: Talking 'Invisible Strings' with Kristie Frederick-Daugherty

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

In this special bonus episode of Beyond the Verse, hosts Joe and Maiya take on Taylor Swift's incredible legacy, delving into an insightful conversation with Kristie Frederick-Daugherty - editor of the poetry anthology 'Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift' - to discuss poetry, music, and the 'invisible strings' that connect it all. Frederick-Daugherty discusses her long-standing admiration for Taylor Swift and the conception of the anthology, which allows contemporary poets to engage deeply with the pop superstar's lyricism. Through this unique collection, Frederick-Daugherty successfully brings together both emerging poets and globally renowned voices, responding to Swift’s themes like heartbreak, self-sabotage, and reinvention. The three discuss and explore the educational value of Swift's work, emphasizing her role in encouraging analytical thinking among her fanbase, particularly the younger generation, by integrating close reading of lyrics into a mainstream context. The episode also includes readings from the anthology, such as Frederick-Daugherty's own poem 'No Invitations,' which interweaves themes of love and self-discovery, alongside A.E. Stalling's 'The Gift of Apollo,' Ilya Kaminsky's 'On Flight', Maggie Smith's 'Pull' and Oluwaseun Olayiwola's 'Entanglement'. Throughout the discussion, the relevance and impact of the classical world in the context of modern poetry are explored, with references to figures like Cassandra and themes such as prophecy and public scrutiny. The conversation also touches on the broader cultural and community implications of Swift's Eras Tour, highlighting the collective experience of shared language in a live setting. As the episode concludes, listeners are encouraged to explore further readings and discover the hidden layers of meaning within both the anthology and Taylor Swift's discography, fostering a greater appreciation for the interplay between poetry and popular music. To learn more about Kristie Frederick-Daughtery, check out her website, the 113 Poets Foundation, which aims to support poets and small literary presses, and her recently published collection with Ballatyne Books/Penguin Random House. Send us a textSupport the showAs always, for the ultimate poetry experience, join Poetry+ and explore all things poetry at PoemAnalysis.com.

Hello and welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by Poemanalysis.com and Poetry Plus. Now, today we have a very special episode. We're going to be interviewing Christy Frederick Doherty, who has edited the collection Invisible Strings. 113 poets respond to the songs of Taylor Swift, published by Ballotine Books, Penguin Randolph, So Christy's managed to bring together a really remarkable group of poets, ranging from

people who are bringing out their debut in the next few months to really experiencing globally renowned artists. And I think, Christy, if you don't mind, we'd just like to start off at the beginning. So do you mind telling us a little bit about you as a poet, as an editor, and where the origins of this collection sort of came from? Absolutely. Thank you for having me today. It's a thrill to be here. The origins of this anthology actually came. and sort of an unbelievable story. I've been a Swifty since her debut album in 2006, and that's largely in part because my daughter was young then,

and she found herself in Taylor Swift's early work. I was watching the Grammys, and Taylor introduced her new album when she won her first award of the night. And in a flash, my brain asked me the question, And how can contemporary poets and poetry enter into this conversation with Taylor? How can we use this to enter into conversation with her amazing lyricism and also bring contemporary poetry into a mainstream conversation?

And as quickly as that thought entered my brain, I conceived of this anthology where I gave poets one Taylor Swift song and they responded to it without using direct lyrics or titles. to create a Swiftian gang. What she does, what her fandom, the Swifties call Easter eggs and what, of course, we know are actually illusions, right? So I knew she had trained hundreds and millions of people in the art of closed reading synthesis and analysis. And I wonder, can temporary poetry come in here?

That's absolutely fascinating. And just on that note of bringing these different voices together because 113 different voices and there are different styles of poems, different lengths of poems. When we normally have anthologies like this, we tend to think of that central subject as something really unifying,

oftentimes something quite singular, whether that's geographic or thematic. But I'm curious, how did you go about finding a consistent thread for this anthology, given the fact that Swift is such a varied, multifaceted artist? I think the consistent thread,

to put it maybe in broad terms, is that so many, as I said, hundreds of millions of listeners find themselves somewhere in her discography. Her themes are very universal, that of heartbreak, existential loneliness, the problem of the self. When you're your own worst problem, she writes so much about self-sabotaging, when you want to do well and you want to love, but you end up messing it up in the end. And so I trusted her with this. One of the very interesting things, and I would argue one of the things that she does that is very different from any artist that I've known of is that she enters each album willing to deconstruct herself to reconstruct herself. So she, in a way, becomes more self-aware on every album, which is what you would want. want any writer, any human being to do as they progress with age. And Swift is willing

to do this publicly. So I trusted her songs. I knew that from debut to the very different folklore and Evermore that she came out with during the pandemic and then entering Midnight and TTPD, I believed that they had the gristle there. to create a cohesive anthology. I mean, just jumping off of that, I think it's so interesting to talk about that thread of reinvention and self-invention. And I was struck that in your introduction to your collection, you spoke about Helen Sissou,

who is an absolute must-read for budding poets, especially when you're looking at a feminist critique. And I was kind of wondering, from your perspective, how important do you think the act of writing is to that process of self-revelling? invention. I think we're lucky that Taylor is doing it this way. When I write poems, I have no idea where it's going. I might start with, usually my first five lines are tossed to the wind, and somewhere in there, if I'm lucky, the poem finds itself. And I believe that is where some self-invention, some reinvention happens. So I would say that the practice of writing is crucial

to self-discovery. And with Taylor, she alludes so very often to how she can't stop. She can't stop writing. And she's not lying. I mean, during the pandemic, Taylor wrote sister albums

and a Grammy for one of them. And then she came out with Midnights on the heels. And then in the middle of a world tour, she decided to write a 31-track album and throw it out there to the world as well. This 31-track album, Stephanie Bird of Harvard, actually considers her best work yet. So for Taylor, I know that the process of writing is crucial.

She's shown us that. I mean, it's an incredible thing to see as someone who writes as well, to see someone who is consistently recognized to be reinventing and be successful at it. Coming at it from a poetic lens is inspiring, really. It really is inspiring. like I said, I'm a debut era Swifty, and I've loved her music from the beginning. But my head really, really turned when she released anti-hero. That's not to say I wasn't listening intently before, but when she released the song Anti-Hero, because Folklore and Evermore were

narrative, which was very cool as a poet to see her going into where she took on a persona other than her own in folklore and Evermore. That showed growth as a writer. And it showed she was paying attention. She knew, I can't just keep doing it. I can't write another speak now or red. Where can I go with my riding? She pushed herself. And then in midnight's when she released anti-hero, it's me high on the problem. It's me. And you would see 15 women singing it while you got groceries. I saw where she was saying, recognize when you are the problem and look for yourself. They say all riding is political in a way. And I think as writers, is that not what we try to do somewhat?

Ride about something in a way where we ask our readers and ourselves, what power can we grab here? Where can we find in ourselves where that little change needs to be? And all throughout midnight, Taylor does this with the final track to your reader, literally ending with the line, you should find another guide. light, but I shine so bright, which is brilliant. I mean, she knows, it's tongue and chink, but very sincere. I mean, she knows that her stardom is something so large that there's no one that can live up to that. There's no one's words who could live up to that. And all throughout

the album Midnights, she acknowledges that, which I felt was such a brilliant turn for someone at the height of such insane celebrity. You mentioned earlier about the process of Easter egg finding and, you know, for us as sort of lovers of poetry and people who've studied it in universities, we call that illusions, as you said. And I just want to focus your attention on the title anthology because I was really fascinated by this.

I mean, the lines that precede invisible strings in the song of the same name are some of my favorite of any Swift songs. You know, isn't it just so pretty to think? and I was so happy reading the wonderful forward to this anthology by Sir Jonathan Bate because he makes the same connection that I did and that, you know, that's always nice to hear about the connection to the Hemingway novel The Sun Also Rise is that final line, isn't it pretty to think so? Which I loved for any number of reasons and you can take those lines or you can take just the two words invisible strings if you'd like. But I'm interested in knowing what is it about that title and perhaps those lyrics that spoke to you and that you decided

was the way to train the 113 poems that follow. Absolutely. Great question to digress from that for a minute. When I had the idea to ask Sir Jonathan, because in my PhD studies, I'd found where he's writing about her and the brilliance of her lyrics, I emailed and 30 minutes later, he said, yes, it was magical. The first title I had for the book, I liked Modern Idiots, which was from Tortured Poets Department, the song,

I'm not Patty Smith. This ain't the Chelsea Hotel We're Modern Idiots, which is so wonderfully everything. And then I thought, what's tying these poems to the songs? What's tying the songs to the poems? Taylor's Invisible String.

And as we did not include an index in the book, it's not even necessary because the poems stand as their own works of art. The songs stand on their own, as they're tied together with something invisible. So I added an S to the end of invisible string and came up with invisible strings. And I can say that there will be a master list dropped. Yet say how it's going to be big and fun, but you can read it on their own. You can get the list when it comes out, reread them through the

lens of the song. But no matter what those strings are invisible. I love the idea that you've brought together a really diverse range of poets that on a first glance would almost seem kind of worlds apart, I think it's fascinating. And to root back to that conversation around Easter eggs, given how Taylor has managed to really introduce into the mainstream, that ability to pick and find and really hyper focus on small lyrics and numbers, I mean, what benefit do you think she's had for maybe the younger generation when it comes to applying that in education systems or beyond. I think she's had a tremendous effect, and I think it's up to us to continue that work now, to take it and make it into something that students are interested in. We live in

an age where all information is at play. Too much information is at play. And our children are presented, bombarded with it from a very young age. They don't need to know how to gather the information. They need to know how to look at and analytically think about what's being presented to them and go through it with that critical eye to know what is being presented to them. And I think that Hal Taylor has created an interwoven discography primes them for that type of thinking, where they can find the strands, they can find the connections. There's thousands of TikToks made that talk about all of these invisible strings, these illusions. And I think it's important that we acknowledge that this is something being done as educators.

It's a really interesting point, and I think it's just worth noting to listeners who aren't aware that there are several universities, I think one in the Netherlands and a couple in the states who have begun teaching Taylor Swift's lyrics at a really high level at university level And also, I was reading an article just today about the British context in which a number of students taking English literature at A level has dropped by 25% over the last few years. So anything that drives students into a love of literature is obviously a really powerful thing. And whether that's a songwriter, whether that's a novelist, it doesn't really matter how you enter that world. We're going to ask Christy to read one of the poems in the anthology. And we're actually going to start with Christy's own poem, no invitations.

When I wrote this, I knew that many poets. the poems wouldn't be as easy to decode, and I wanted to give Suswifty's one that they could go, oh yeah, I see it, so no invitations. In October afternoon, we were driving, and you turned to me and said, I can act and make people believe anything I want them to believe. There was music playing, always yours, techno.

Your meaning was clear, so I morphed the words into hard phonemes to thump inside the temple, relaying syntactical meaning, heart dies by this arrhythmia, to let it live for another week, sweet enough to hang in mid-air my disbelief. I forget this is not my own, how every breakup poem pays its dues to the breakup home that came before. Here's a method to unbelieve that you were ever in the inn of in love. Gather some rosebuds, blood red. chom chomp them up chew vomit let the ruse the lava drip believing only this taste of flowers tonguing the velvet undersides of petals christie christie darling make out with yourself don't listen for the key turn i remember when i read this poem for the first time in preparation for today's episode i couldn't help but wonder where in the process you sat down to write your poem is this something that predated the reading of other poets or had you already read several other poets

responses to Swift songs by the time you came to write yours. This predated the poems that the poets wrote. When I had the idea I practiced with poems, and I'm certainly an emerging poet. I don't have a book yet. I wanted to see, can you do this? And if you can do it, do you think you can do it at any sort of level? How's this going to work? So I took round 10 poems and practiced, which served well because I sent out a few of mine

to the poets saying, if you want to see how I envision this, here you go. Well, thank you so much for that reading. And I must say, I think when I read this for the first time, I was really struck by your usage, kind of of the relationship between gore and violence and the kind of weight of the love that accompanied it. Joe and I talk a lot on this podcast about how you can tell when a poem was written paying attention and when you can tell that there's listening inside of a poem. And I think your poem absolutely demonstrates that. How did you feel when you were kind of interpolating that relationship between love and gore

and those two very opposing feelings as it relates to Swiss discography? You know, I'm thinking of the differences between her debut album and that kind of soft lovey-dovey feeling as compared to reputation, which was much heavier in a real turn away from what was expected. That's a great question. I don't write love poems. to echo Jane Hirschfield when I asked her to write a poem for this book and she said yes and I fell down and died 20 times. And then I managed to start talking to her as a normal human. She was talking about how one of her books, she used the word heart and the title and she received

some respect from that, like against sentimentality, that whole insane movement that happened. So when I wrote this poem, I thought, let it go, write a poem about, about when your heart was broken. And I did. And it came out bloody. So in that way, I feel Taylor even more. I don't aim to write poems about a breakup or about love. I mean, I don't aim to write poems about anything. I'll let the poems come. And before I knew it, there were rose puddles and I was vomiting and I was eating them. And I found some anger. I didn't know I had, which was interesting to me. the music playing always yours. And that was true.

It was never my music. And I liked how that obviously parallels to Taylor with her music. So I guess maybe if you let it get a little personal, maybe that blood and gorse shows up in a way she don't see coming. It was one of the things I really enjoyed about the poem was that obviously it's very easy to fall into this kind of false dichotomy about when poets respond to song lyrics that the music is the thing that goes away, the words remain, the lyricism of the words remains, but the actual physicality of the music

is the thing that goes away. But what I love about this poem is that the physicality of the beats and the rhythm, the vibrations are really front and center. And was that a deliberate thing? Is that something is common in your poetry? Was that something that very specifically came out of responding to a song? I think that I don't know if it's really in my poetry. I do tend to use rhyme. It just comes naturally to me. I have music in my family. My daughter is a trained opera singer, actually. My son is a singer-songwriter getting ready to head to Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. In the fall, my mother sang. So I had that somewhere in me, as we all do. I mean, honestly, that's what makes this human, right? We all have music in our blood, in our veins.

With this poem, the song that I responded to is one of my favorites of Taylor's, because the lyrics are some of her saddest that she's written, but the song is an upbeat bob. So the dissonance between the lyrics in the song absolutely just enthralled me. It's brilliant. It's so brilliant. She'll write the saddest lines, but put them to this crazy. upbeat, techno beat, like I can do it with a broken heart. I'm so depressed. I act like it's my birthday. Every day, and the beat is like jazz hands. And the song I responded to is much the same. And the ending of the song I chose, it's an allusion to a streetcar named Desire. And the ending

of the play where she says, whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. and they've come to take her away. So, yeah, I think that the dissonance of the lines, the lyrics and the upbeat of the song I responded to really drove my poem. Wow. I mean, I love discussing with poets the meanings and the reasonings behind why they've chosen things.

And one of the phrases that really stuck with me from your poem was heart dies by this arrhythmia. I mean, when we're talking about the importance of a musician and their music to really holding the core of your whole collection. I love the fact that your poem in this actually really speaks to what happens if you lose the music. If you lose that rhythm, that's the end. And that finality, I think, is so, so important.

Thank you for saying that. That wine, when I think about my poem, I read it, that wine always comes out in my brain as almost a whisper, hurt to eyes by the spheritnia. It's a moment where I think the speaker of the poem speaking to herself when it's always someone else's music you're listening to and then the music stops completely where are you going to go right well if mya gets to point out one of her favorite lines it would be remiss of me not to do the same i mean where did the line there's a

method to unbelieve that you were ever in the inn of in love come from because that is just one of those lines that feels like it's come out fully formed but is that am i reading too much into that or with that one that did require a lot of revision? I was playing with the word in because I'm fascinated with the fact that we call it falling in love. And we say we're in love, right? Because what are we in love with? Are we in love with in love? If I say I'm in love with Tom, well, I'm saying I'm in love with two things.

I'm in love, in love, but also in love with Tom. And when that ends, if it ends, what ends? Both of those things. You lose the magic. And as science shows us, the hormones that come from the situation of being in that state with someone. And then you lose that someone. Those words shape our consciousness, how it is we feel when we're inside of that and outside of that. And it's dichotomous, right? You're in love or you're out of love. Well, that's not true. Everything is always sort of somewhat of a middle ground, but we tend as humans to go all the way with it. So I was really playing with the language and the idea of in love. I really love that. And I think it's so interesting that you say you don't write love poems,

but when I left this poem, I certainly took it as really an ode to self-love more than anything because you talk about the in of in love, but if you offer it to yourself, that's not something you ever lose. And as it relates to Swift, someone who so adamantly discusses the importance of self-love and is really kind of an idol for generations

to reflect that same self-love back at themselves. I left this poem feeling so positive and I just love the idea that you don't view it as a love poem, but for people who are reading it that don't get your input on it, actually can leave it with that sense of fullness, really. That's what I hope. Make out with yourself. Don't listen for the key turn. I mean, go ahead and eat the rose petals. Be with them. Even if the other person is gone, don't sit around listening to see if someone's coming back. And most of midnight is about that very thing. Hundreds of millions of Swifties are asking themselves is, how does language shape us? Right? I mean, how does it shape us if we say, oh, I'm in love and I don't. have that anymore versus saying had someone, but I still have love because I'm still here. So very nice. Thank you for saying that. I'm going to pick up on this because I think I've never thought

about it in the terms that you've just laid out, but there's something about the language that we use to describe a love often for another person. And the irony of that is that the other person is not necessary for the language to work. It doesn't need the presence of a third party. And yet we constantly find a third party being injected into it. There is something ironic about the removal of that third person need not necessitate the end of the feeling of love because linguistically, at least, they were never necessary for that love to be complete in the first place. That's exactly right. And you just led me into another thing that I think about so much. And that is the very Western idea of how we view death as in a stopping of that love. If a parent loses their child,

people don't want to go up, oh, I might upset them. You're not going to upset them. Their love has not ended. And that was, I like the way you put that. Even in a sentence, structurally speaking, down to the grammaticality of it, you don't have to have an object of the sentence to love. Maya and I spoke about something very similar in a previous episode on Elizabeth Barrett Brownings, How Do I Love The?

And we spoke about that sort of almost perversity of traditional marriage vows and how it's till death do us part, the implication being that death of one person marks the end of the love. And there's nothing about that process that necessitates that. Just because somebody has gone that is oftentimes people love them even more after death.

And again, if listeners are interested, they can go and check out that episode in their own time. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is someone that we have spoken about quite extensively on the podcast before. And we often consider what is it that makes a poet great, what makes a writer great. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a really kind of singular style and unedited voice she existed in a really singular space but there are other poets who work

within entire genres that have hundreds of thousands of editors and for you as someone who has edited a collection read so many diverse poets now what's your answer what makes a poet great oh my gosh nice easy one for you yes what makes a poet great why do we all default to emily Dickinson's answer, that if I feel as if it has blown the top of my head off, that I know that is poetry. I think it's a moment, if you're reading a poem by a poet, and you find something that makes you change your posture or moisture, you're sitting and you straighten your back, or you tilt your head, and you find something there hands that can grasp, real toads with imaginary Gardens. When you find those things that Marianne Moore talks about, a hand that can grasp almost a

hand coming up out of the poem towards you, or you find something akin to Elizabeth Bishop's family voice that she talks about in the waiting room, something almost just a little bit ancestral where a part of you says, me too. I think that's when a poet is doing something really, really right. And specificity is so important. I'm reminded of a poem I teach often when I'm trying to get writers to move away from using any sort of generality. Jane Kenyon's poem, it came to me, and it's the gravy boat. I call it the gravy boat poem. And I'm not going to do a bad paraphrase, but she says, I took your gravy boat from the barrel. There was a hard brown drop of gravy's still on the porcelain whip.

I grieved for you then as I never had before. And when a poet is able to illuminate and shed light on those hard brown drops of gravy, there's a reason why we can get through the funerals that people we love. They're very general. But when we go home and find a book with a bookmark or a drop of gravy or something personal, that's where we find that person. so when a poet can sprinkle those in that's when I think they're reaching a level of greatness

and that's a really beautiful idea as well Now I know for many listeners out there trying to stay on top of what's going on in the world of books and poetry is difficult at the best of times life is very very busy and we are delighted to tell you that there is a simple way of staying on top of what is going on in the literary world. If you sign up for a membership at poetry plus at pomeanalysis.com, you will receive a weekly newsletter, absolutely full of recommendations, news items,

poets of the week, great poetic quote, so that you can stay on top of what you need to know in the poetic world, and you can wow your friends and family with all of your poetic knowledge. So sign up for a membership now at poetry plus at pomeanalysis.com. One of the things that struck me when I was reading the anthology was how many poems in this collection call back to the classical world. Just after the release of the Torture Poets Department, I actually wrote a brief article for Poem Analysis.com about the poetic allusions that I saw in that album. The presence of figures, stories, iconography from ancient Greece that I found in that collection alongside many others really surprised me. But we can look at a couple of examples. I know you're going to do another reading now of A.U.

Stallings, the gift of Apollo. But perhaps before you read that, what is it about the classical world, those stories that you think resonate both with Swift as an artist, but also with poets responding to the work of Swift? So I think they give us the archetypes that we need. They give us those things that a poet can place into a poem. this symbolism is already there. So like when, in Taylor's song, Cassandra,

just dropping the title, Cassandra, a poet can get a lot of work done by dropping it there. It's elusive. It's symbolic. And then how can they play, how can they recreate the story of that figure, be it classical, be it biblical? One of the things I love that Taylor did in the Torture Poets Department.

And I think is a sign that she, is maybe thinking, maybe I can write a sod, is how but she mixes it. She doesn't care. She mixes the biblical. She mixes Greek. She mixes Dylan Thomas, Patty Smith. And it's just all over the place. It's all over the place. And she allowed it to run amuck. Here we are with you in Greece. Here we are with you in the Bible with Mary. And that's wonderful. She just went there. She just did it. And then in the Tortured Poets Department song, she dropped names of the people around her, Jack, Lucy. You know, Peter is obviously an allusion to the literary figure of Peter Pan.

It very much is a great dinner party. Now, if you wouldn't mind reading A. Storling's wonderful poem, one of my favorite from the collection, the gift of a collar. I scroll through doom. They said it flew in the face. Of logic, the future throwing its shoe in the face. I told you so is nobody's best friend, yet somehow they could tell you knew in the face. The swift's return, a tailored premonition. The sea goes a wind, dark hue in the face.

Global warming? Check. Do nothing? Check. Make grease great again. Flags ruin the face of the neutral sky. Nightmare is recurring meme when someone waves the 22 in the face. I won't be the first to die. I won't be the last, but the first raped, a priestess too, in the face of the goddess of virginity. She will not lift a finger watching it ensue. In the face of what comes next, a slave in the king's bed, I'll do what anyone must do. In the face, face of death's dark web, the queen's flayed bleeding out, I'll tell the truth till I am blue in the face. I mean, I love Stallings work generally, and if listeners enjoyed that, as I'm sure many of them will have done, want to read more. They can go to Permanalysis.com and read not only the poems, but some

commentary as well. And Stallings is one of the great classicists still writing today in terms of that depth of knowledge of the ancient world in classical mythology. I love the way this poem distorts that sense of time and distance, because within a single line, we go Greece to very, very contemporary events politically. But the thing I want to focus on, and I'm glad you mentioned the figure of Cassandra earlier on, this great iconic figure from the Iliad. Cassandra is a Trojan princess and the Iliad who was cursed with the gift of prophecy because nobody will believe her prophecy. So when the Greek armies arrive at Troy, she is the only person that knows that they spell disaster, but her fate is to be ignored. And it's this

deeply tragic gift. What I found really interesting thinking about the figure of Cassandra, the kind of prophetic figure with regard to Taylor Swift or indeed any woman in the public eye, is that I kind of ends up viewing Swift as a kind of almost inverse Cassandra figure, this idea that people read so much into every word that she says, whether or not she's making an offhand comment, whether or not she's just got a headache, whatever she says is interpreted by fans and critics to be kind of prophetic. And how do you think that impacts her as an artist?

And do you think Storlings was playing with that idea? I do. To all of that, this poem is alluding to Cassandra. It's alluding to Taylor's song Cassandra, and when I invited her to contribute a song, I knew what song to give her, right? If you know her work at all, you're going to give her Cassandra or you're going to be ridiculed. So anyhow, this is on the second part of Taylor's Torture Poets Department. She dropped 15 tracks and then at 2 a.m. she dropped 16 more. And this is on the second part.

And then there's a song, The Prophecy as well, on the second part. So some brilliance there with Taylor. I love the way that Stallings effortlessly and without explanation jumped into the modern of global warming. She's such a master poet. And she just trusts that we're going there with her. To talk about what you're saying about Taylor, that on the tortured poets department,

absolutely Taylor was analyzed to death. I mean, Taylor would be the first to tell you, She's not a prophet. She's not a God. And not everything she utters is an illusion that reputation is dropping tomorrow. And while that has been great for sales for her and to keep things going, I think that in the Torture Poets Department, she's asking everyone to back up a little bit, asking them to reflect on exactly how much it is she can do and where her place in all of it.

it needs to be. Does that make sense at all? And Stallings with this poem takes, she furthers Taylor's song by bringing in into it politics and the state of the world with nightmares recurring me when someone waves a 22 in the face. She brings in the stuff that Taylor probably couldn't in the song, the global warming, the do nothing, the gun. It's so incredibly powerful this poem. and one of those central words I really want to laser in on is that return again and again to face, the face being the central figure of this. And I mean, I read this almost in tandem with the way in which Swift is described in the public arena.

We have a constant return regardless of the songs, the lyricism, the importance of the things she's actually saying. I saw this as a real return to the focus on what she looks like, who she's dating, the importance of those more superficial elements. So I think Stallings has done an amazing job of really actually creating a commentary on what it is, not just to be a modern woman, but a modern woman in the limelight. And obviously by linking that kind of classical illusion, you're drawing these threads back thousands of years.

And I think that's a really beautiful thing. But, I mean, when you read this poem, what do you see in that face? I see how Bob Dylan didn't face the same thing, is what I see. Bob Dylan didn't face this. And I think that maybe I'll just leave my answer there. I've had people ask me, so she wears something like a bathing suit and fishnets on stage to perform. Well, is that real feminism? Well, you know what?

don't we want to get to the point where why are we asking that question a beautiful costume does not say that one is not a feminist what did bob dillon wear why do we not talk about that now so what she chooses to wear beautiful dresses and to make in an event that doesn't negate the lyrics and again i go back to that where i get so tired of everything being a dichotomy yes a beautiful dress and yes a genius, brilliant lyricist. Both things can be true. Absolutely. And Joe and I have actually talked on the podcast about this before, where Bob Dylan, he won the Nobel, and there is zero criticism over the reasons why. I think if Swift achieved the same,

despite having one of the highest grossing tours, despite having this enormous success, the criticism that would be leveled against her would be tenfold. We received this week from a prominent book reviewer. It wasn't so much as a review as it was a sort of blog. And he called Sir Jonathan's Forward in my introduction where he satirized and said that what I said where Taylor brushed by me at her first concert was akin to, I was thinking like the invisible string, right? How cool it was that we connected and then who knew that I was comparing it to Mary touching the hem of a garment. in the Bible. So, yes, if Sir Jonathan and I can get that kind of criticism thrown at us for

saying, and we took my remarks completely out of context, if he can take our remarks that much out of context, can you imagine if Taylor does win the Nobel for literature? I can't. In an article that Sir Jonathan wrote, he did say at the very end, he said Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature. I'm not going that far yet. He said, but watch this space. I am an enormous Bob Dylan fan, but I promise myself I wouldn't be the first person to bring Baldwin Dylan up in this conversation because it's not about him. But I do think, to your point, the speed at which people in the 60s were willing to talk about Bob Dylan as a prophetic figure versus, as we're talking about the allusions to Cassandra, I don't know the exact number, but a dozen studio albums into Taylor Swift's career,

does, I think, speak to that ingrained belief that women pop stars don't have as much to say on the conversation, which I think when you compare the lyrics for lyrics, it's just a ludicrous position to hold. I mean, she's clearly a generational lyricist. In the same vein as Dylan, Patty Smith that obviously Swift herself alludes to in the Torture Poets Department. So much of that conversation is driven by things that have nothing to do with the lyrics themselves. And I find wading through that noise in many cases to get to the core of what is a really impressive canon of work. Sometimes it's an endeavour more than worth doing. Just before we move on from Storling's poem, because this is competing with a line from Ilya Kaminsky's poem for my favourite in the entire anthology.

But I love the comparison between the wind, dark sea that she alludes to early in the poem and the dark web later on. because again, it's that ability to transcend temporal and geographic boundaries to take you from one place to the other. And again, the listeners who perhaps are confused by that, the wind, dark sea is a very, very commonly found phrase in Homer's Odyssey and in the ad. And of course, the dark web, our listeners will be familiar with. It's a term already. There's something really interesting about the way that Stallings takes that sense of danger and uncertainty, but brings it into our living rooms, into our bedrooms, onto our mobile phones. we don't have to go out of our front door to be overwhelmed by darkness and by uncertainty.

And, I mean, not so much of a question is more of a massive thank you to A.E. Storling's for what I think is just an unbelievably concise piece of poetic expression. I agree with you. I actually emailed her twice. After she sent this poem, I mean, twice besides the first email thanking her. And as I was ordering the book and spending time, I sent her to. separate emails saying simply, this is so good. This is so, so good. Every time I read it, it hit me harder the next time. I really hope that this poem, the Writers Chronicle, is running it on its online publication, but I really hope this poem finds, I hope it gets out there. And just to root back to what Joe just mentioned is that Ilya Kaminsky poem, which I think,

again has some of my favorite lines in this whole collection. And the one that really sticks out to me is the closing lines. May you find as one tortured poet knew that Icarus also flew. We talk a lot about doomed poets, doomed prophecy, these kind of more negative associations with the act of writing. This to me is absolutely triumphant in the way that it states. Icarus also flew. There is a sailing. There is an absolute joy in being able to put pen to page and to be able to put your emotions out into the world. And that's something I think Swift has really championed, especially in our modern day where you have a constant onslaught of bad news. But I'm kind of curious from your perspective. With this poem, what do you think it brings to your collection?

Gosh, what he so often does to poetry, I think what he brings, brings to poetry itself, and that is a sense of calm, steadfastness. There's no panic in his work. I sent him many songs before he actually first sent him the song Epiphany, and he wrote back and said, I can't, she references COVID in that song, and he did not want to write it. He did not want to write us. Okay. And so we went through many songs, and when I gave them the song he alludes to, he sent this, I screamed. When I read it, I screamed and I had to get up and go for a walk. What a privilege. What a rare privilege to be the first person to read this poem for the anthology. I had to get up and walk because all the poems in the book are so good. But this

was very much just here, but it was just in the chest. There was a calmness to it. When I learned that the book was going to drop on December 3rd, I struggled the first couple of the first couple of weeks of November, as did many U.S. writers struggled, dare we have any joy? Because this administration is going to cause marginalized groups to suffer. And then it hit me that this anthology has brought joy. And that is what Diane Seuss told me when I shared these concerns with her. She said, you have brought us together. This anthology has brought joy. And then I realized as well, that after Taylor came out and endorsed Kamala,

our new president-elect tweeted and said, I hate Taylor slipped in our capital letters. She was a citizen of this country and that's what the president-elect said about her. So I realized maybe this book is needed even more now

where 113 great poets celebrate her after the leader of this country felt that he could say that for the whole world. to see. I believe that Kaminsky's poem here gives us some of that resolve that we're going to need to face the next four years. I just want to pick up on the word joy that you've used there because obviously it was a word associated with the election as well. It was a word that was

very closely associated with the Harris campaign. But I think one of the things that this collection has the potential to do, and I'm sure this was part of your thinking, is bring that joy to readers, in the book itself but in the connections that they can make through this book because you actually include a reading list at the end of this anthology where you recommend the works of the poets contained within it which I think is a really lovely touch this is one of the poems that brought me a moment of joy as you said your definition of what makes a great poet earlier is that line or that moment in a poem where you change your posture I had that absolutely vividly when I read

Kaminsky's lines for a lyric is a string tied to gears because I just saw there are talented writers who can spend a decade and they won't come up with a line as good as that one. I mean, it's such a beautiful expression of what the spoken or written word can do and to have it in a collection that is itself responding to music. I just think was such a wonderful homage to the musical form more broadly. And again, I think that the joy that readers can have not only when they read this collection, but in the collections they might go on to buy and read, could be exponential because you don't know who they're going to recommend it to. And that's how you kind of create this buzz and this movement around literature. We think we're playing a small role on that on the podcast. And we hope that listeners who might be discovering the podcast through

this episode for the first time will go and listen to other episodes. It doesn't matter how you arrive at poetry. Because the way you arrive doesn't have to be the way that you continue. You can discover a poem in a school, discover it in an advert, discover it from a personal recommendation through a song. But where it takes you is a thing that matters. absolutely so well said that was my thinking with the playlist and that was my thinking with the anthology if you're loving taylor swift's lyrics poetry is not something inaccessible sir jonathan writes about that so well in his foreword and talks about the origins of poetry in jane hersfield outro she talks about poetry's always been rooted in music and what poets are

writing today is completely accessible people can understand it and i hope that this anthology can help bring people to poetry. Maybe they'll pick up a Maggie Smith books. Maybe they'll pick up some Richard Seichen, but it's there for them. And it's accessible. Let your playlist grow to include poetry. I mean, whilst you were talking then, I was just thinking about, as you say, these invisible strings and the fact that every single poem within this collection,

every single song now has links to a thing. thousand other moments. And it actually made me think of one of the poems I really enjoyed in the collection, which was Entanglement by Oloushan Oliola. And I believe they have a debut collection coming out soon. Correct me if I'm wrong. No, that's absolutely correct. But the way that the poem discussed, that sense of being entangled and resisting, but also learning, was something that really struck me as quite important to, I think, Swiss discography as a whole, to be Whether you're a swift enjoyer or not, you can't escape her absolutely enormous presence in pop culture. And I think this poem does a really excellent job of kind of demonstrating those invisible strings as you were.

But is there a reason that you chose this poem and why is it important in this collection? He requested his song. When I invited him to the anthology, he had a song in mind. And what he came back with was perfect. interesting you're bringing his poem up because Stephanie Burt and I have an interview upcoming in the American Poetry Review in January, and she also brought his poem up. So very nice for him, very exciting for him. She was very taken with this poem. I'm looking at it now. Yeah, Joe and I were discussing before we recorded this podcast, just how impactful this poem was.

I did know he had a debut collection coming out. I had found his work. I can tell you, everyone in the anthology was personally invited. I invited people who live on my bookshelf and whose words have shored me up over the years. And then poets who are emerging, who I have found in the journals that I read constantly, I love to have the latest delivered to my doorstep. So I'm finding these new voices. And his voice was simply one that I loved. It was his agent who actually said he has something coming out. And so I was so thrilled that he said yes, and then when I got this poem, I mean, I was like, oh my gosh, so much choreography in there. It really touches on the Eros tour that just ended as well. And somehow, you know,

he brings it in like that. He brings in the recent tour that ended. Because he and Diane's use as well have collections coming out with Fitzgeraldor editions when they launched their poetry list in the new year. So very exciting. I mean, if you have not checked out Diane Seuss and her latest book, Modern Pets, poetry, which was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Please check it out. Diane Seuss is what she's doing with language. She's at a peak. Diane Seuss is at a peak. Of course, every single poet in this collection has a huge part in it, but Diane was a really pivotal part. And the coming together of this anthology, could you speak to that a little bit?

I had Taylor in my ear, and I would carry Diane's latest book of poetry in my purse. One day, a couple years ago, on Messenger, I sent Diane Seuss' message, this fan girl message, and she wrote back to me, and she talked to me for two hours. We talked about poetry for two hours, and then I let her be. But we said hi back and forth, and then when I had this idea, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, to quote Shakespeare, and threw her out a message and said, I have this idea, would you contribute? And the dots appeared and they reappeared. And she said, yes. And she said, I can give you a list of a few people who I think would. And then without me asking, you may tell

people I am contributing. I told myself, right then, I was so fully present in that moment. I recognized generosity of spirit in the gift that Diane had just given me by giving the project, some legs immediately. And as it turns out to be, Diane has become a very close friend, which is magic. She's become my friend. And that is the biggest gift. She's lovely. She's wise. She's warm. She's smart. She's patient. So, yes, she did have a very big part. And then she wrote such a killer poem with the lucky one, the song that she wrote, which I'm sure many people can tell what her song is, but for people who don't grasp it in there, when her song is revealed, that opening line, the first was my father, is going to hit like a gut punch. And that's what's so cool

about this anthology is how many forms it has. It has its own beautiful form of just amazing poems by amazing poets. It has its own arc. But then it's going to have another arc when songs are revealed. It strikes me that this collection is going to have a pretty remarkable afterlife because, as you say, the first reading is going to be completely different to the reading

that readers are going to have when they have the list of songs which accompany each poem that's going to completely redefine the way they experience some or all of those songs. Not only that, these poems are an absolute mine

when it comes to discovering new voices, discovering new poets. I mean, I've really enjoyed the lucky ones by Diane's use and some of my notes are just the names of people that were being alluded to, either explicitly or implicitly, and William Butler Yates, Sylvia Plath, Ed Guerrall and Poe,

and again, a little plug for us, if listeners want to know more about any of those poets, they can go to the website, or in fact, Maya and I have done episodes on William Butler Yate and Ed Garallin Poe. And I think that it's such a gift to have this opening into this world that it's a road that keeps on sort of being constructed

as you walk along it. It's like a treadmill, a Taylor Swift fan, who's never read a poem, or hasn't read a poem since they were at school, can enter through one of these poems and there is no end to the number of poets and works they can go on to discover through these poems. Thank you for saying that.

And that's what I want. I mean, that was the whole point of the anthology really is let's get reading, right? Like, go read some of these poems. Bring it into your life. There's a reason why we turn to poetry for births and for deaths. But, you know, I read a poem at my grandfather's funeral And my family isn't a group of poets, but, you know, there's still in the room, the difference that happens when a poem is read.

And I hope people can start turning to poems when it's not just the time of a crisis or a happiness. Jo and I always say poems more often than not allow space and they provide you those openings, right? and something that reading your collection and seeing how you'd collated those poems together is you allow a lot of space to find those Easter eggs or to just take a breath and take a moment. So I do have a question, which is in the spirit of that, how difficult was it to find an opening to this collection?

You use the poem Pull by Maggie Smith, which I think is such a brilliant way to open, but I can't imagine the task you had in choosing a way to begin this impossible project. The ordering was perhaps, it was one of the most challenging exercises I've ever had. Songs are loud.

Just of themselves, a song is going to be louder than a poem. So I knew what song each poem responded to. And I know all of Taylor's lyrics as any Swiftie does. I know them all by heart. So I had so many false starts

where I would begin ordering and realized that I was pledging my allegiance to the songs and not to the poems. So I had to get those songs to be quieter, which meant another week, much to my editor's dismay, which meant another week of really, really getting these poems to where I had lines memorized, like where I had a few lines memorized of each poem, so that they were in my consciousness at that time louder than the songs. So I had to shut that part of my brain all to make sure that the book, first and foremost, was its own thing with the poems. When I found Maggie Smith's poem school, and when Jane set me, now from the distance of time, I felt immediately that was the ending poem.

But then I did receive Kaminsky's poem and Maya Popas, and both of those also felt like they could end the normal script as well. So I was on the fence a little bit, like, which of these three do I want to end with? But when I found Maggie's poem, it became completely obvious that I needed to end with Jane's poem. They allude to sister songs from sister albums. Maggie's poem begins with a bit of a troubled spirit. And Jane's poem ends with someone content with the ambivalence of life. When I found those two poems, I was able to let the middle start to form itself in a way. And there are a few Easter eggs with the ordering.

Poem 13 is Kelly Russell Agadon, which we, poem 13 had to be something special. That's actually a little love gesture to Taylor herself. The Kelly's poem in the song that it responds to is a big heart to Taylor. If you're a Swifty, track fives are the most vulnerable songs. each album. So poem five by Tyler Not Gregson is a track five. I'll give you that. So there are some Easter eggs like that and others as well. But for the most part, once I settled on beginning with the vexed spirit of Maggie Smith's poem to the speaker of Jane's poem who is looking back in saying this, okay, this has been okay, I'm okay. It really found its shape then.

I love the idea that they're going to be swifties, you know, pausing this episode with pens and paper and hands, scribbling notes to try and work out the answer in which song relate to which poem. Mio and I wish we could discuss every single one of the poems in the collection. But I guess as we draw towards conclusion, I'll make this my last question. And it relates to Taylor. You obviously recently have come back from the final show of the era's tour, I believe, in Canada. And for those who aren't super familiar with Swift, could you try and sum up the impacts that the ERIS tour has had both in a musical sense, but also in a broader cultural and artistic sense? I will tell a story that I haven't told yet on here up

into Vancouver. So the ERIS tour, I talk about this in my intro. I've seen Taylor's concerts before. Obviously, I was out the night before in Nashville, and the concert it ended. And a woman and said it was life-changing. And I thought, oh, geez, that's a bit much. But it's because of the community. It's because 70,000 people in a stadium are singing together every single word of a 44 song set plus two to four secret songs. Every single word, it's a shared language. in language, written language is a solitary event. When we read, we're alone. If we read a great poem, how many, how many times have we went? Oh, there's no one here. There's no one here for me to say, oh my gosh, listen to this line. Or if we're reading a great novel and we come

up on something and we pause and we sit back, you want to share that. But you just, you keep going. You have to keep reading. It's an alone event. And just like when people listen to Taylor, in their headphones, in their car, in their house, and these lyrics have resonated with them so deeply, alone. They might talk about it with someone, but the actual experience of it is alone. And then you find yourself in a stadium with 70,000 people who are scream singing these lyrics. And all of a sudden, it's shared and it's magic. Language is the cornerstone of civilization.

It's all we are. It's what we are. And I cannot wait to see people who are smarter than me, who write about language. I hope that someone picks up on that threat of it, of what happens to a group of people when the words that have resonated for them in the solitary, what happens when you come together. because this has been a phenomenon. Literally, it's a phenomenon. I don't know if anything this big in the history of the world has ever happened with shared language. I think back to the time of Shakespeare and some people would say, oh, no, now she's talking about Shakespeare right after talking about Taylor's Lippd, right?

But, you know, Shakespeare wrote these plays that were not highbrow back then. That was the language. It wasn't highbrow at all. They were hot, dirty messes of entanglement and divorce and scandal. And he wrote them and then men performed them across the countryside. He went on tour with words. And that's what Taylor Sliff just did. 152 shows all across the world.

She went on tour with language that binds people. And it was so amazing to be there for that final show. I don't think there's any better way to close our episode today than a testament to the importance of the written, spoken, sung word. Now, Chrissy, I really only have one final question for you, which is what can we expect from you next, whether that's a bit of rest and relaxation or have you got anything else coming up? So one thing I will share is that I have founded the 113 Poets Foundation. And with proceeds from this book that I receive, I'm going to be donating a portion of those into this foundation. I have established a sounding board of some spectacular poets. And I want this foundation to bring about some financial help to get poets out into schools and

universities and for them to be able to ask for $2,000 to help and go and read their poems. I also really want it to be able to perhaps provide some financial assistance to small, independent, non-profit literary presses, the heartbeat of where our poets find their first works published. So I have that. I have a novel in progress called The Bible of Eve. So I'm really looking forward to at some point being able to get back focused on that. I'll receive by PhD next summer.

So I'm excited about that and just see where the wind blows, I suppose. Wow. Well, finally from me, I just want to say thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the episode. And hopefully our listeners have enjoyed. It's meant to be the end of season one last week, but we thought we'd give them a pre-Christmas treat. So thank you so much, Christy, Frederick Dockety.

enjoy listeners, enjoy Swifties, and we're very happy to have you on Beyond the Verse. Thank you both so much. This is an amazing opportunity. I very much enjoyed this. I appreciate the opportunity, and I appreciate the love you're giving Invisible Strings. Thank you. Well, thank you so much, Christy. It was lovely to meet you and chat with you. But for now, for all of our Beyond the Verse listeners, it's goodbye for me. And goodbye for me and the whole team at Permanalysis.com and Poetry Plus. Thank you.