A look at the Tortured Poets group chat of frequently assigned poets as they process Taylor Swift’s newest album.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: I loved “The Albatross”!!!
Edgar Allan Poe: I kept waiting for other birds.
Not enough birds in this album I would say overall
And no bells, tintinnabulating or otherwise.
Lord Byron: it’s a Jack Antonoff production you’re not going to have tintinnabulating bells
Percy Shelley: I was a little sick of the production. Not seasick
Though… I’ve always had a premonition I would die at sea
John Keats: You know what I would say in response to this album? “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
Percy Shelley: how did you feel about the album though
John Keats: I said what I said
e. e. cummings: when she said that she kept “these longings locked in lowercase inside a vault” i thought
how sad to keep your lowercase inside a vault. i wear my lowercase with pride
Lord Byron: just looked at twitter — who is Matty Healy?
Siegfried Sassoon: I was sad that none of the songs were about how bad World War I was
Wilfred Owen: Yes! She did a song that alluded to World War I before so it’s not like we are just saying this because we are World War I poets desperate for things to be about World War I
T.S. Eliot: you know she sang a song for “Cats,” the movie
Which I mostly wrote. This was better than that, I felt.
Dylan Thomas: I was actually mentioned in the album. [Everyone gives this message a thumbs down.]
Emily Dickinson: I liked — the Track
About the Chelsea Hotel
It was — a bop — to me
Dylan Thomas: though I did wonder — does she just know me as someone who died in a hotel? I also wrote “A Child’s Christmas In Wales”
Emily Dickinson: in whales???
A Christmastime — inside — a Whale?
Dylan Thomas: no H
Emily Dickinson: a shame
Patti Smith
Was mentioned too
But she never — checks the chat
Percy Shelley: “So Long, London” had some lines I liked about not abandoning the ship but instead going down with it. This is a best practice I think
Edna St. Vincent Millay: oh my god percy shelley please learn to swim
Percy Shelley: no I don’t want to
learn to burn a candle the correct way
Edna St. Vincent Millay: it was a metaphor
Robert Frost: lyrically, I wish she had taken a road less well-trodden
Edna St. Vincent Millay: wow you could knock me over with a feather that you, Robert Frost, would wish that
William Carlos Williams: i listened to the songs that were on the album
forgive me
Dylan Thomas: shut up plum thief
Lord Byron: this man steals plums
Percy Shelley: get out of here plum stealer
T.S. Eliot: loved all the religious imagery in “Guilty as Sin”!
John Milton: I loved religious imagery before you were even a twinkle in anyone’s eye
I wish this album was more like “Montero”
Dante: just because it isn’t Lil Nas X
John Milton: Lil Nas X is the only artist alive today whose music interests me! Lil Nas X has vision! Lil Nas X has taste! Did you see the music video for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”? The depiction of Satan in that video! This is an artist who gets it!
Dante: Virgil liked it
Virgil: Dante please stop putting words in my mouth. We have talked about this.
Dante: I liked how long “Tortured Poets Department” was! 3 more songs and it would have been tied with the Inferno! Not a comment on the contents just a comment on the length!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: it was 31 songs long? I thought I was high
Walt Whitman: I kept waiting for a track to be about Abe Lincoln’s death and none of them were
also who are the men on this album? I enjoy a song of a man and a song of a self as much as anybody, indeed more than most people but a golden retriever with tattoos?
Lord Byron: I’ll hear it out
Homer: at least there were no sexy babies or hill monsters in this one
Elizabeth Bishop: whoa Homer is in the chat!
Homer: I liked “Florida!!!”
Sylvia Plath: when she said that she had been caged and called crazy that resonated
William Blake: yes!
Emily Dickinson: Yes
Sylvia Plath: to a degree
Emily Dickinson: to a — Degree yes
Percy Shelley: I think we should go on a boat and discuss it [Everyone gives this message a thumbs down.]
