#  "A Perfect Rhyme" by Stephanie Burt 

 





September 19, 2024

 

 

*A new anthology of poetry takes aim at young fans of Taylor Swift.*   
  
"[Poems for Tortured Souls](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316584142/?tag=slatmaga-20)—published in the U.S. by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers—presents itself as being for Swifties of all ages, though the selections and packaging suggest a gift book aimed at youth. These poems come sorted by topic, with Swiftian overtones: 'Love,' 'Folklore,' 'Peace,' 'Revenge.' Robert Burns’ 'My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose' comes first; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s 'Songs for the People' ('Songs to thrill the hearts of men / With more abundant life') last. In between we get the onetime bestseller Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and Emily Dickinson, and Claude McKay, and (less explicably) Edgar Allan Poe’s 'The Raven,' and the prologue from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. We get L.M. Montgomery, the Anne of Green Gables novelist, with quatrains 'thanking' her mortal enemy (compare Swift’s 'thanK you aIMee'), and Emily Brontë, of Wuthering Heights fame, proclaiming independence: 'I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: / It vexes me to choose another guide.' And we get Charles Dickens’ catchy ballad of inevitable decay, cast as a jaunty song about English ivy: 'The stateliest building man can raise, / Is the Ivy’s food at last.'"  
  
Read more [here](https://slate.com/culture/2024/09/taylor-swift-lyrics-2024-tortured-poets-department-anthology.html).



 

 

 



 

 

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