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

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. 

Transcript

Taylor Swift & Contemporary Poetry: Talking 'Invisible Strings' with Kristie Frederick-Daugherty (Transcript)

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Maiya: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+. Now today we have a very special episode. We're going to be interviewing Kristie Frederick-Daugherty, who has edited the collection Invisible Strings. 113 poets respond to the songs of Taylor Swift, published by Ballantine Books and Penguin Random House.

So Kristie'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 

Joe: really experienced and globally renowned artists. And I think, Kristie, 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?

Kristie: Absolutely. Thank you for having me today. It's a thrill to be here. The origins of this anthology actually came [00:01:00] and sort of an unbelievable story. , I've been a Swiftie 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, 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 game, what [00:02:00] she does, what her fandom, the Swifties call Easter eggs. And what of course we know are actually allusions, right? So, I knew she had trained hundreds of millions of people in the art of close reading, synthesis and analysis. And I wondered poetry come in here.

Joe: That's absolutely fascinating. And ~I ~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?

Kristie: 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 [00:03:00] 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. , 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, know of is that she enters each album willing to deconstruct herself to reconstruct herself. So she, in a way becomes more. aware on every album, which is what you would want any writer, human being to do as they progress with age. And Swift is willing to do this publicly. [00:04:00] 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's and , TTPD. I believed that they had the gristle there to create a cohesive anthology.

Maiya: 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 Hélène Tissot, 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 invention?

Kristie: I think we're lucky that Taylor is doing it this way. When I write poems have no idea where it's going. I might start with usually my first five lines are [00:05:00] 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

Maiya: I mean, it's an incredible [00:06:00] 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, it's inspiring, really.

Kristie: it really is inspiring. Like I said, I'm a debut air as Swifty and I've loved her music from the beginning, but my head really, really turned. When she released anti hero, and 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 and it showed she was paying attention. She knew, , I can't just keep doing this, I can't write another speak now or read and where can I go with my writing? She pushed herself and then in midnights when she released antihero, it's me. Hi. I'm the problem. It's me And you would see [00:07:00] 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 writing is political in a way, and I think as writers, is that not what we try to do somewhat, write 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's, Taylor does this, with the final track, Dear Reader, literally ending with the line, You should find another guiding light, but I shine so bright. Which is brilliant. I mean, she knows It's tongue in cheek, 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, Midnight, she [00:08:00] acknowledges that, which I felt was such a brilliant turn. For someone at the height of such insane celebrity.

Joe: 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 allusions as you said 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 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 didn't know You know That's always nice to hear about the connection to the Hemingway novel the Sun Also Rises that final line Isn't it pretty to think so?

Which I love 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 [00:09:00] knowing what is it about that title and perhaps those lyrics that spoke to you and that you decided was the way to frame the 113 poems that follow.

Kristie: Absolutely. Great question. To digress from that for a minute when I had the idea to ask Sir Jonathan because in my book, PhD studies, , I'd found where he's writing about her and, , the brilliance of her lyrics. I emailed in 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 Patti 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, 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 [00:10:00] works of art. he songs stand on their own. They’re tied together with something invisible, 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. , can't 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.

Maiya: 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, ~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 [00:11:00] in education systems or beyond?



Kristie: I think she's had a tremendous effect and I think it's up to us just, 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. 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 how Taylor has created an interwoven primes. Them for that type of thinking where they can find the strands, they can find the connections [00:12:00] there's. Thousands of TikToks made that talk about all of these invisible strings, these allusions. And I think it's important that we acknowledge that this is something being done as educators 

Joe: 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 percent 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 Kristie to read one of the poems in the anthology, and we're actually going to start with Kristie's own poem, No Invitations. 

Kristie: When I wrote this, I knew that many poets the poems wouldn't be as easy to decode. And I wanted to give Swifties one [00:13:00] 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 tempo, relaying syntactical meaning, heart dies by this arrhythmia. To let it live for another week, sweet enough to hang in midair, my disbelief. I forget this is not my own. How every breakup poem pays its dues to the breakup poem that came before. Here's a method to unbelieve that you were ever in the inn of in love. Gather some rosebuds, blood red. Chomp, chomp, chomp them up. Chew, vomit, let the rouge saliva drip. Believing only this taste of flowers. Tongue, the [00:14:00] velvet undersides of petals. 

Kristie, Kristie, darling, make out with yourself. Don't listen for the key turn.

Joe: 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?

Kristie: 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.

Maiya: 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, [00:15:00] 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 and a real turn away from what was expected.

Kristie: That's a great question. I don't write love poems. To echo Jane Hirshfield , 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 [00:16:00] books she used the word heart in the title and she received some pushback 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 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 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 petals 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 [00:17:00] personal, . 

Maybe that blood and gore shows up in ways you don't see coming.

Joe: 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? Or was that something that very specifically came out of responding to a song?

Kristie: 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 [00:18:00] I have that, somewhere in me as we all do, I mean, honestly, that's what makes us 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 bop. So the dissonance between the lyrics and 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 as 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 [00:19:00] 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.

Maiya: 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.

Kristie: Thank you for saying that. That line, when I think about my poem, I read it, that line always comes out in my brain as almost a whisper, heart [00:20:00] dies by this arrhythmia. It's a moment where I think the speaker of the poem is 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?

Joe: Well if Maya gets to point out one of her favourite 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 in 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 is that one that did require a lot of revision?

Kristie: 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 [00:21:00] also in love with Tom. And when that ends, if it ends, what ends? Both of those things. You lose ~the, ~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.

Maiya: I really love that. And ~I, ~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, [00:22:00] 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, ~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.

Kristie: 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 midnights 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 [00:23:00] had someone, but I still have love. Because I'm still here, so very nice. Thank you for saying that. 

Joe: 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.

Joe: 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.

Kristie: 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 [00:24:00] them their love has not ended, and that was, I liked 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.

Joe: Maiya and I spoke about something very similar in a previous episode on, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's How Do I Love Thee? 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

Maiya: 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 [00:25:00] work within entire genres that have that. 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?

Joe: nice easy one for you.

Kristie: 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, ~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 almost, 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 [00:26:00] 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 still on the porcelain lip. 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 of people we love. [00:27:00] 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.

Maiya: I think that's a really beautiful idea as well.

Joe: 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+ at poemanalysis.

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So sign up for a membership now at Poetry+ at [00:28:00] poemanalysis. 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 The Tortured Poets Department, I actually wrote a brief article for poemanalysis.

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. And we can look at a couple of examples. I know you're going to do another reading now of A.

E. 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?

Kristie: So I think they give us the archetypes that we need. they give us those things that a poet can place into a poem. The symbolism is already [00:29:00] 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 this, in The Tortured Poets Department, and I think is a sign that she is maybe thinking about. Maybe I can write a song is how much 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 amok, here we are with you. 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 [00:30:00] 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, 

Joe: now if you wouldn't mind reading A. E. Stallings’s wonderful poem, one of my favorite from the collection, The Gift of Apollo.



Kristie: 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 wine dark hue in the face. Global warming? Check. Do nothing? Check. Make Greece great again. Flags ruin the face of the neutral sky. Nightmare is recurring meme when someone waves a 22 in the face. I won't be the first to die. I won't be the last. But the first [00:31:00] 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 of death's dark web, the queen's blade bleeding out, I'll tell the truth till I am blue in the face. 

Joe: 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 PoemAnalysis.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 and 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 in the Iliad who is [00:32:00] cursed with the gift of prophecy because nobody will believe her prophecies.

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 I kind of end 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 Stallings was playing with that idea.

Kristie: 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, [00:33:00] right?

If you know her work at all, you're going to give her Cassandra, or you're going to be ridiculed, , this is on the second part of Taylor's torture poets department that 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 jumps. Into the modern of global warming check, 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 allusion that reputation is dropping [00:34:00] tomorrow. And while that has been great for sales for her and to keep things going. I think that in The Tortured 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 and where her place in all of 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 meme when someone waves a 22 in the face, she brings in the stuff that, you know, Taylor's probably couldn't in the song , , the global warming, the do nothing, , the gun, 

Maiya: 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, [00:35:00] 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 by linking that kind of classical allusion, you're drawing these threads back thousands of years. And I think that's, that's a really beautiful thing. But I mean, when you read this poem, what do you see in that face?

Kristie: 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 [00:36:00] 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 Dylan wear, why do we not talk about that now? So what she chooses to wear beautiful dresses and to make it 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.

Maiya: 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 [00:37:00] achieved the same, despite having one of the highest grossing tours, despite having this enormous success, the criticism that would be levelled against her would be tenfold.

Kristie: ~ ~We received this week from a prominent book reviewer. It wasn't so much as a review as it was sort of blog and he called sir Jonathan's forward and my introduction pre-SAT 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 he 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 [00:38:00] literature? I can't

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, watch this space. 

Joe: I am an enormous Bob Dylan fan, but I promised myself I wouldn't be the first person to bring Bob 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 ~a ~Dylan a Patti Smith that obviously Swift herself alludes to in The Tortured Poets Department.

So much of that conversation is driven by things that have nothing to do [00:39:00] 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 is exhausting, but it's ~a, ~an endeavor more than worth doing.

Just before we move on from Stallings’s poem because this is competing with a line from Ilya Kaminsky's poem for my favorite in the entire anthology 

Joe: But I love the comparison between the wine 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 for listeners who perhaps are confused by that The wine 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 the 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 [00:40:00] overwhelmed by darkness and by uncertainty and not so much of a question It's more of ~a ~a massive Thank you to ~uh ~a stalling for what I think is just an unbelievably concise piece of poetic expression

Kristie: I agree with you. I actually emailed her twice after she sent this poem twice besides the first email thanking her, and as I was ordering the book and spending time, I sent her two separate emails saying simply, This is so good. This is so, so good. Every time I read ~it, ~it, it hit me harder the next time. I really hope that this poem, the writer's Chronicle is running it on its online publication, but I really hope this poem finds I hope it gets out there. 

Maiya: 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 [00:41:00] 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, ~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?

~I~

Kristie: What he so often does to poetry, think what he brings to poetry itself and that is A sense of calm steadfastness. [00:42:00] 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, ~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 him the song he alludes to, he sent this, I screamed, when, 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, 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 weeks of November as did many, us writers struggled, dare we have any joy, [00:43:00] 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 Swift in all capital letters. She is 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~ and ~I believe that, Kaminsky's poem here gives us some of that resolve that we're going to need to [00:44:00] face the next four years.

Joe: 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 not only 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 thought, 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 [00:45:00] 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 ~It ~could be exponential because you don't know who they're going to recommend it to.

And that's how you kind of creates 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 the thing that matters.

Kristie: Absolutely. So well said. That was my thinking with the playlist and that was my thinking with the anthology. If you're [00:46:00] 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 Hirshfield's outro, she talks about poetry has 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 book, maybe they'll pick up some Richard Siken, but it's there for them and it's accessible let your playlist grow to include poetry.

Maiya: 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 thousand other moments. And it actually made me think of one of the poems I really enjoyed in the collection, which was Entanglement by Oluwosin Oluwola.[00:47:00] 

And I believe they have a debut collection coming out soon. Correct me if I'm wrong,

Kristie: No, that's absolutely correct. 

Maiya: 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 Swift's discography as a whole, to be honest, 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, and why is it important in this collection?

Kristie: 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 Burton, I have an interview upcoming in the American poetry review in January. And [00:48:00] 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.

Maiya: Yeah, Joe and I were discussing before we recorded this podcast, just how impactful this poem was. 

Kristie: I didn't 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 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 ERAS tour that just ended as [00:49:00] well. And, somehow, you know it, he brings it in like that. He brings in the recent tour that ended. 

Joe: because he And Diane Seuss as well have collections coming out with fitzcarraldo editions when they launched their poetry list in the new Year, so very exciting . 

Kristie: I mean, if you have not checked out Diane Seuss and her latest book, Modern 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, Seuss is at a peak 

Joe: of course every single poet in this collection has a huge part in it, but Diane was a really pivotal part in the coming together of this anthology. Could you speak to that a little bit?

Kristie: 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's message this fan girl message, and she wrote back to me and she talked to me for two [00:50:00] 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. 

Kristie: I told myself right then I was so fully present in that moment I recognized the generosity of spirit and 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 [00:51:00] the biggest gift. She's lovely. She's wise. She's warm. She's smart. 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.

Joe: 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, but. Readers are going to have when they have the list of songs which accompany each [00:52:00] poem That's going to completely redefine the way they experience some or all of those songs But not only that these poems are an absolute mine when it comes to discovering new voices discovery new poets I mean I've I really enjoyed The Lucky Ones by Diane Seuss and some of my notes are just the names of people that were being alluded to, either explicitly or implicitly, and William Butler Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan 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, Maiya and I have done episodes on William Butler Yeats and Edgar Allan 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.

Kristie: Thank you for saying that. And that's what I want. I mean, that was, the whole point of the anthology [00:53:00] 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 turned to poetry for births and for deaths. But you know, I read a poem at my grandfather's funeral and, my family, is, is in a group of poets, uh, but you know, the still in the room, the difference that, what 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,

Maiya: Joe and I always say, Poems more often than not allow space and they provide you those openings, right? ~And, ~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, ~I do have a question, which is in the spirit of that. How difficult was it to find an opening to this collection? [00:54:00] 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.

Kristie: the ordering was perhaps, but 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 realize 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 [00:55:00] so that they were in my consciousness at that time, louder than the songs. So I had to shut that part of my brain off to make sure that the book first and foremost. was its own thing with the poems. When I found Maggie Smith's poem and then when Jane sent 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 Popa's poem and both of those also felt like they could end the manuscript 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 in Jane's poem ends [00:56:00] with someone content with the ambivalence of life. So 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 as 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 on 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 and [00:57:00] saying, this, okay, this has been okay. I'm okay. It really found its shape then. YEs, 

Joe: you know, Pausing this episode with pens and paper in hand, scribbling notes to try and work out the answer and which song relates to which poem. Maiya 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 Eras Tour, I believe, in Canada, and, for those who aren't super familiar with Swift, 

could you try and sum up the impact that the Eras Tour has had, both in a musical sense, but also in a broader cultural and artistic sense?

Kristie: I will tell a story that I haven't told yet on here that happened in Vancouver. the Eras Tour~ I, ~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 had ended and a woman said it was life changing and I thought, Oh, geez, that's a bit much ,, but, [00:58:00] 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 2 to 4 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, I mean, 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, 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 [00:59:00] 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 thread 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 [01:00:00] say, Oh no, now she's talking about Shakespeare right after talking about Taylor Swift. 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, And he wrote them and then men , perform them across the countryside. He went on tour with words and that's what Taylor Swift just did. hundred and 52 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.

Maiya: 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, [01:01:00] or have you got anything else coming up?

Kristie: 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 founding 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 nonprofit literary presses. The heartbeat of where our poets find their first works published. So I have that, I have a novel in progress [01:02:00] 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 my 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 wanna 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 Daugherty. Enjoy listeners, enjoy Swifties and we're very happy to have you on Beyond the verse 

Kristie: 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.

Maiya: 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 from me.

Joe: and goodbye for me and the whole team@persis.com and Poetry+. [01:03:00]