Taylor Swift’s new album title “The Tortured Poets Department” refers to the poet with the modifier “tortured”, creating many mixed opinions in the poetry community.

During her acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights on the Grammy stage, Taylor announced that she would release her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, on September 19. /4 coming soon.

The community of “suffering poets” responded

After the above announcement, Swift’s Instagram and X accounts had posts about the new album name. Photo: @taylorswift.

Many questions were raised when this album title spread on social networks. Who are these “poets”? Does Swift count herself among them? Do pop singers steal anything valuable from poets?

Some poets who identify themselves as “sufferers” say the title is a witty, self-deprecating call to their community.

Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine from 2003 to 2013, said: “As a suffering poet, I support this name. Or is she mocking us? I guess I also accept that.”

Poet Adrienne Raphel, author of the poetry collection Our Dark Academia said that the album title is reminiscent of the Robin Williams film Dead Poets Society and noted that the film was released in 1989, the year of Swift’s birth. “Taylor takes us fully into the space of dark academia,” said Raphel, referring to the viral subculture that celebrates reading, writing and gothic fashion.

Taylor Swift’s handwritten poem is included in the new album introduction. Photo: @taylorswift.

Taylor Swift’s handwritten poem is included in the new album introduction. Photo: @taylorswift.

Richard Siken, whose poetry collection Crush won the Yale Younger Prize in 2004, said the album title is both a serious take and a good-natured joke about poets. Siken was especially impressed with the line “My thoughts, piled up like brutal bruises” in the poem Swift posted. “She’s right. You can’t just think about it and think about it without getting harmed.”

Eileen Myles, author of more than 20 poetry collections, believes that to some extent, musicians and poets have things in common. Therefore, she “felt a close spiritual connection to that album title of Taylor Swift”.

Will Taylor Swift influence poetry and poets?

Along with the enthusiastic reception, many poets also expressed skepticism or even criticism of Swift’s album title.

Gregory Pardlo, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2015 for his poetry collection Digest, seemed to disagree with Swift’s description of “suffering” poets. She believes that this modifier falls into the clichéd motif of the image of artists and belittles their struggles. She also asserted that today’s poets take mental health very seriously and that she was “annoyed” that Swift’s poem seemed to be romanticizing a condition diagnosed as an anxiety disorder.

Stephanie Burt, an English professor who teaches a class about Taylor Swift at Harvard University, believes that you don’t have to “suffer” to write poetry, even as a professional poet. He thought that no one deserved to suffer and felt compelled to create works of art that would survive the test of time and make the audience sympathize.

There has long been debate about whether Swift is a poet or not. Burt asserts that Swift “is not a great poet but a great musician. These two art forms are closely related but not the same.” But Burt also added that Swift nonetheless belongs to a poetic tradition, influenced by many poetic ideologies.

Ginnie Bale, the poet with the famous meme verse “He didn’t like drama/and I was [] Shakespeare” said: “Taylor’s music is an inspiration for many contemporary poets on Instagram and TikTok.”

Lang Leav – a famous Australian poet on the internet added: “I have always admired Taylor Swift’s ability to write lyrics, so I was very touched when I heard the title of her new album.”

Some people hope Swift’s new album will make the public more interested in American poetry – which in real life is a very precarious field for scholars in poetry departments. Sasha Debevec-McKenney, a poet and creative writing student at Emory University, said she supports this and expects poetry classes to have “a lot of people vying to get in.”