Taylor Swift refused to be interviewed for British Vogue, even though they gave her the cover. Instead, she wrote the publication a poem. While her songwriting skills may be lauded for their nuanced relatability, how do her literary credentials stack up?
When her latest album, Reputation, dropped it wasn’t met with the standing ovation of some of her previous work. Though it garnered four-star ratings across the board, it’s dynamic production was treated to a good deal of criticism. However, her songwriting abilities were once again applauded.
She offers ‘a masterclass in pop songwriting’, said the* Guardianbefore adding, ‘She’s smart enough to write lyrics far better and wittier than the average pop fare, inverting the cliché of the love ’em and leave ’em Romeo...’. The Associated Press echoed this, writing: ‘Riding those big beats are the lyrics — Swift’s speciality. Some of the words hit hard like gunshots.’ While, USA Today *added, ‘ Swift takes ownership of her narrative in a way listeners haven’t heard before’.
So we gettit, Swift can write a catchy pop tune, but what about her poetry? Called ‘The Trick to Holding On’, the composition in question is four stanzas long of eight lines each, except the second that has a jarring seven.
Written in free verse there is no formal scheme to speak of, yet there’s a natural rhythm starting from the anaphora in the opening three lines. The use of the word ‘they’ to signify an ever-changing other - be it mean people whose ‘words will cut’ or adults that ‘don’t tell you this when you are young’ – creates a pretty obvious thread throughout the verse.
The third stanza brings the closest thing we know to song lyrics with rhyming taking the driving seat. The dynamism of the stanza comes not from the enjambment but from the simple swell of rhyme from ‘net’ with ‘forget’ and ‘whims’ with ‘swims’.
The final coda brings a quick conclusion that essentially underwrites the whole poem as pointless. Question: is Taylor playing us??
‘It reads more like an early draft, a handful of unedited song lyrics, than a self-contained piece. As a lyric poem, it is not a success; from the leaden anaphora of the opening lines to the heavily signposted rhyme of the conclusion, there's simply too much to take issue with.’ Explains Tristram Saunders, The Telegraph's poetry critic, says. ‘But it's not entirely without merit, either. A few individual phrases, particularly the 'lustrous net' of a stranger's gaze, offer a glimpse of the talent that has won her so many fans.’
The New Statesman’s Anna Leszkiewicz was equally harsh writing, ‘It’s a pretty sombre tone. It might remind you of some of the great funeral poems: Christina Rossetti’s “Remember”, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye, WH Auden’s “Funeral Blues” (“Stop all the clocks…”) and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas – if those poems were about getting mad at a pop star for stealing dancers or Kim Kardashian leaking recordings of private phone calls.
'It might also remind you of the e. e. cummings poem “let it go – the”, if it were written in full sentences, with hearts dotting the “i”s. (That poem encourages the reader to “let go” of “the truthful liars, “the false fair friends” and “the oath cracked” – so, basically the most Taylor Swift phrases you’ve ever heard.) The difference, of course, is that this poem is more of an inspirational cross-stitch bookmark than a poem.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.