Invisible Strings - 53. "1993" by Katie Manning

"1993" by Katie Manning

If I go with my gut from the get-go, I'm calling this one "Mary's Song." The poem starts with this line:

You were ten when you first saw

the boy you'd marry from across

the room

Which sounds a lot like the beginning of the song:

She said, I was seven and you were nine

I looked at you like the stars that shine

In the sky, the pretty lights

And our daddies used to joke about the two of us

Growing up and falling in love and our mamas smiled

And rolled their eyes and said, "Oh my, my, my"

I'm such a sucker for all of this. The poem is such a sweet tribute to a long-lasting love, which you find out at the end has lasted for more than twenty years. The song has always been one of my favorite mushy Taylor love songs about a young love that lasts. And I not-so-secretly love the invisible string of the line "I'll be 87, you'll be 89" that she wrote when she was 16, and she is now in a relationship with KC Chief Travis Kelce, whose number is 87, and she, of course was born in 1989 and named an album after the year.

Invisible Strings - 52. "Since You Can't Spell Disaster Without Desire" by Christopher Salerno

"Since You Can't Spell Disaster Without Desire" by Christopher Salerno

I read this poem last night and thought "Lover." But I'd already chosen it for an earlier poem, so I decided to sleep on this one.

During today's read of the poem, "Sweet Nothings" came to mind, not because of any obvious word choice or images, but because of the message of each. Also, maybe because my brain had been thinking about it all night and day 😉

The song:

They said the end is comin', everyone's up to somethin'

I find myself runnin' home to your sweet nothings

Outside, they're push and shovin', you're in the kitchen hummin'

All that you ever wanted from me was sweet nothin'

The poem:

Leaving the theater, they will pop

the metal exit door and orient to how

the parking lot light bathes the blacktop

at yet another dusk, how the chill of evening 

 

has inspired the ornamental cherry

tree to drop its bulk of blossoms all

in a pile on their windshield. This is not

a real problem, they will say pushing

the petals away. This is what I was waiting for.

Maybe even more than Taylor's songs, those final three lines of the poem really touch me and nearly bring a tear to my eye. It's such a beautiful description of love.

Invisible Strings - 51. "Perennial" by Andrea Gibson

"Perennial" by Andrea Gibson

In this project, some poems really present some difficulty, and I struggle to get started on them or to untwist all the thoughts about their potential matches that are floating around in my brain.

Then, other times, I read a poem and just smile because I know exactly where the poet was going. And that's the case with this poem. I think it has to be "Delicate."

With Taylor's songs, I'm always a sucker for the over-the-moon, deeply-in-love songs. And it's no different when it comes to these poems either. They just make me so happy.

The link for me between the poem and the song is all the questions - the incessant questions.

And honestly, when I first heard "Delicate," I found it a bit grating on my nerves. But somewhere along the way, I read something about how she perfectly captures the obsessive nature of new love, how you can't get a person off your mind, how you're thinking about all the minutia of every little moment, every little interaction, and I thought, "Ding, ding, ding! That's it exactly!"

This poem is so heartwarmingly lovely, I have to excerpt some of my favorite lines:

When I look at you, why does it feel so much like 

stargazing? Why do I want to lose to you

in Scrabble? Win you over with nothing

but the truth?

Will you know what I mean

when I tell you to duck your head for the moon?

Do your tears ever fall like confetti?

 

It will keep coming back, even if tonight

is the only night I get to dance in the endzone

of your laughter after asking if it's too soon

to ask you everything.

Invisible Strings - 50. "Whereby in Reply" by Natasha Saje

"Whereby in Reply" by Natasha Saje

It feels crazy to not choose a song that mentions the word "red" for a poem that has so many red images in it, so maybe I'm getting really off base here. But I've already chosen "Maroon" for an earlier poem (#8) that I revisited and still feel fairly confident about that match.

In the poem, there are: blood, berries, cherry blossoms, cardinals, tanagers, ruby. So it certainly seems like it should link with a song that mentions "red." But these lines make me think perhaps it could be going another direction:

while you, alone, deny

our days are overdrawn

in the ruby bank of time

and everyone we know swift-or-slow-ly dies

forgive me if I oversimplify

It's the denial that's has landed me on "You're Losing Me":

My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick

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As an aside, "You're Losing Me" is such a great song, and it seems to be in the tradition of "New Romantics." Both are gems in her catalog, but she left both of them off of the main track lists of their respective albums. They seem like some of the very best Easter Eggs, for the fans to discover beyond the tracks that were commercially released. The real ones know!

Invisible Strings - 49. "Of All the Girls Who Might Have Made It Big" by Paul Muldoon

"Of All the Girls Who Might Have Made It Big" by Paul Muldoon

This poem, like several others, discusses fame - how to find it, how to keep it, who might strike it big. The problem I keep running into is that there isn't a vast array of Taylor songs on the subject.

The title of the poem certainly sounds similar to the song titled "All of the Girls You Loved Before." But I don't see many (read: any) similarities between the content of either of them.

So, then we get into those "fame" songs - "The Lucky One" (already chosen earlier in this project), "Midnight Rain" (also already accounted for), "I Can Do It with a Broken Heart," and "Clara Bow" are the ones that come to mind.

The poem focuses on the dedication to the craft that's needed to become famous - a few different lines from the poem:

a ten year game of tig / in which she would forever be "it"

the one least likely to call it quits

gig after three-hour gig

continues to exercise those gazing up from the pit

And those lines all lead me to "I Can Do it with a Broken Heart," since in the song, she talks about all the heartbreak she has experienced but she still does her job every night, making the crowd think that she's "having the time of her life."

Invisible Strings - 48. "Virginia Reel" by David St. John

"Virginia Reel" by David St. John

Clocking in at 7 pages, this is the longest poem in the collection so far, and it reads like a story. The lack of commas slowed me on the first couple readings, but when I read it like a run-on sentence, I was able to make better sense of it.

The first thing it made me think of was "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. The poem is set in the south, and the main characters are a father and daughter who both play fiddle in a way that others describe as "touched by the Lord / Or the Devil I don't really know which anymore."

The narrator wants to learn to play fiddle from the father and then begins to learn from the daughter, as well. At the end of the poem, the daughter and the narrator play together as the father holds "His annual celebration to commemorate his favorite sorrows." The father "began to rise imperceptibly lifting up beyond the dock ... dancing just above the water twisting while slowing rising higher within the air & drifting farther away." Virginia (the daughter) continues to play, then leaves him suspended above the quarry blocks, until presumably, he falls to his death.

This is a pretty dark poem, and there are only a few songs from Taylor Swift's catalog that seem like they could align - "ivy," "no body, no crime," and "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"

For "ivy" (insert plug for one of my favorite songs of her whole catalog here), it's a section of the middle of the poem:

[...] I told her Well one day last week Lucas

Came up here & sitting just where you're sitting told me

I'd better watch myself & he pointed to those

Virginia creeper vines crawling up the trunks & along

the branches of every tree on this hillside

Slowly strangling the whole tree & covering every single

inch with their embrace & he said that was you

Virginia & your vines came from your genius & your mind

& they'd find their way up my body & finally

Into my own mind where they would choke every hope or

dream I might have until a redtail's screech

Floats at night over the James & nobody'd every hear of me

& I'd be just another meal of a Virginia creeper

This is making it so very difficult to decide, because I think that section is a perfect response to "ivy":

Oh, goddamn

My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Taking mine, but it's been promised to another

Oh, I can't

Stop you putting roots in my dreamland

My house of stone, your ivy grows

And now I'm covered in you

Full disclosure, I wasn't intending on picking "ivy," but I might have convinced myself otherwise.

"no body, no crime" is a little bit more on-the-nose, as the song is a story about a woman who has a friend who is killed by her husband. He successfully covers up the murder, but the friend knows he did it but "just can't prove it," and she won't let up until the day she dies. The friend eventually murders the husband of her friend in revenge and frames his mistress for his murder. In both the story and the poem, there are murders but no bodies, but I think that's about as close as they get. The poem is about a daughter killing her abusive father, and the song is about a friend getting revenge on the murderous husband of her friend.

I had thought that I had settled on "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" and I may still end up there, now that I'm spotting more and more threads. The first might be a bit of a stretch, but it's a possibility. At the time the song came out, I felt like I was one of the few Swifties who had knowledge of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" a play that was eventually adapted as a film starring none other than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton ("Burton to this Taylor" reference in "...Ready for It?" anyone?). All that to say, the play on "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" seems to be a thread in the poem because the daughter's name is...Virginia. In the song, the narrator leaps from the gallows and levitates down your street. In the poem, the father ends up levitating above the river until meeting his death. There are tones of possession in "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?" especially if you take into account the final screen when Taylor performed the song during the Eras Tour - there was a filter that made her skin begin to look old (dead?) and her eyes turn completely white. Throughout the poem, there are references to Virginia being possessed by the Devil. Both poem and song also give power to their female leads, allowing them to exact revenge on those that have wronged them.

So, I did it. I convinced myself that it's "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"

Invisible Strings - 47. "June 1, 7 a.m." by Tennison Black

"June 1, 7 a.m." by Tennison Black

What a beautiful poem to come across on Valentine's Day!

There are so many images in the poem that remind me of the Lover album, and specifically the "ME!" music video:

• I want to skip through daisy fields
• I want a plate of sugared roses
• Kissing her tastes like snowcones and marshmallow wine
• I want tiger stripes and a tail that swishes my thoughts out in 4:4 time
• I want to leave footprints in my birthday cake
• My rainbows come in circles

The imagery throughout the poem is just so joyful and in love, and the songs that come to mind that speak to that are "King of My Heart", "Sweet Nothings," "So High School," and "You Are In Love."

But none of them match the ebullience of the poem, so I'm sticking with, "ME!"

Invisible Strings - 46. "Take This" by Honor Moore

"Take This" by Honor Moore

I'm struggling with this one. I've considered "ivy," "high infidelity," "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me," to name a few.

But, I keep circling back to "Is It Over Now?" because there's a line about a boat in the poem, and the line in the song about the boat had become well-known as a reference to the time she was wearing a blue dress on a yacht alone, presumably waiting for Harry Styles, and it was supposedly around the time they broke up.

Poem: "a boat / on the ocean, and the sun flames down. / I knew I wouldn't wait for you."

Song: "When you lost control / Red blood, white snow / Blue dress on a boat / Your new girl is my clone"

Since the poem ends with someone walking away, "I'm heading out and wild for love. / So long hungry woman, farewell crazy dove." I think it's as close of a fit as I'm going to be able to find.

Invisible Strings - 45. "Homecoming" by Jennifer Espinoza

"Homecoming" by Jennifer Espinoza

I may have been thinking too hard on this one because once I read it through after having settled on "Midnight Rain," it definitely makes sense.

Poem: "You never noticed the way I could rain down / ten summer storms upon one small gathering"
Song: "He was sunshine / I was midnight rain"

Poem: "Fame was never the question"
Song: "He wanted it comfortable / I wanted that pain / He wanted a bride / I was making my own name / Chasing that fame"

Poem titled "Homecoming"
Song: "Pageant queens and big pretenders"

Invisible Strings - 44. "The Gathering" by Callie Garnett

"The Gathering" by Callie Garnett

I started the search for this one by looking for any references to "sister," since this is the final stanza of the poem:

Sister, my sister, it is only through

Loving you, you selfish, disorganized, twitchy, forgetful bitch

That I may love others

So I'll love you

But, Taylor's references to sisters are pretty sparse, and none really match with the meaning of the poem. So, I started looking for other songs that mention female friends, "Fifteen," "When Emma Falls in Love," "It's Nice to Have a Friend," "dorothea." Still, nothing was jumping out at me.

If I look for any other clues in the poem, there's the word "indifference," and there's also the line, "I have a thing I'm trying hard to forget." That seems pretty close to:

I forgot that you existed

It isn't love, it isn't hate

It's just indifference

Based on that, I'm choosing, "I Forgot That You Existed."

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In Taylor-and-Kansas-City-related news, it was a sad weekend for us 😢 KC didn't show up to play at the Super Bowl, and Taylor was booed by the Brads and Chads. I loved seeing the posts going around talking about how she sold out three nights there on the Eras Tour, and even news stations in New Orleans saying speaking out against the ill will toward her, because she brought so much revenue to the city and her donations to the local food banks were making such a big difference.

It's hard to understand why anyone would have ill will to someone who has done so much good for others and who continues to put are out into the world. Is it jealousy? Misogyny? At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter, because she has so many people who love her and will continue to support her. I just wish people could live and let live, and maybe celebrate those who are trying to make the world a better place. We've sure got enough people who are actively trying to make it worse, I know that.

Invisible Strings - 43. "If I Could Tell Her What I Know Now" by Tess Taylor

"If I Could Tell Her What I Know Now" by Tess Taylor

This poem is narrated by a mother talking about her young daughter and reflecting on she will grow up. She says she'll tell her about how she loved a boy who became a man and about the tragedy when love fails. She ends the poem with the lines:

To try. To Try again.

To cry and sing: to sing and cry.

I thought maybe its match could be "The Best Day" because it's a mother speaking about a daughter (the inverse of the song). But I think the poem veers more into navigating relationships than the song does, so I don't think it's the one.

The stories aren't similar, but I think the cadence and the end of the poem just remind me of "So Long, London," when she ends the choruses with "I'll find someone" and "You'll find someone." It reminds me of the hope at the end of the poem. Even though it's tragic, there's always the hope that you can try again and find someone who will treasure you and all that you bring to a relationship. 

Invisible Strings - 42. "Job 5:7" by Ellie Black

"Job 5:7" by Ellie Black

Of course, I had to start by Googling Job 5:7, and I found the following:

Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

This might be my favorite Easter Egg of this project yet 💜 "Sparks Fly" it is!

I've never made a Top 10 list of my favorite Taylor songs, but this one would most definitely be vying for a space on it. It captures falling in love so wonderfully, and it's always impossible not to sing along to.

Invisible Strings - 41. "I Go Back to the Past All the Time" by Jill Bialosky

"I Go Back to the Past All the Time" by Jill Bialosky

I'm taking the bait on this one and calling it "Back to December."

While the subjects of the poem and song don't match up identically, I can definitely see some similarities between the two.

When Speak Now came out, this was my favorite for a long time, and I still think it's solidly one of her best. With the Taylor's Version releases we've received so far (Fearless, Red, Speak Now, 1989), these vault tracks are also some of my favorites. "Electric Touch," "When Emma Falls in Love," "I Can See You" and "Castles Crumbling" are all way up there for me. That being said, I still adore a lot of the vault tracks on the other albums as well. It's been so fun to get to experience new "old" music that was written at the same time that the album was written. It feels like experiencing a bit of a time warp, especially with the guests that she had on her Speak Now vault tracks - Fallout Boy and Hayley Williams. Speaking of Hayley Williams, she was the opener for The Eras Tour in Zurich, so I felt like I got a real two-for-one experience. The Swiss didn't seem to into it, but Hayley put on a hell of a show. Will forever count that whole trip/experience as one of the best of a lifetime!

Invisible Strings - 40. "The Williams" by Naomi Shihab Nye

"The Williams" by Naomi Shihab Nye

I've sat with this one for a while but do not have a pairing that I'm confident about.

The only line that has really been jumping out at me is, "even in a Texas town where they wanted you / to testify before cashing a check." Which sounds a bit like, "Like a freight train through a small town" and "on a six-lane Texas highway" from "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)."

The thing that bothers me about this matchup is that the stories are so different. The poem tells the story of the narrator's life, which is entwined with poetry. The song focuses on a relationship with a bad boy the narrator thinks she can "fix," until she realizes that she can't. So, in content, they aren't really jiving.

However, both the poem and the song seem to have a similar flow to them. I considered "The Tortured Poets Department" but decided against it because the storylines aren't a match, and other than the poem talking about poets, I didn't see similar word choices, references, or the like.

So, for now, I'll go with "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)."

Invisible Strings - 39. "Grief Observatory" by Topaz Winters

"Grief Observatory" by Topaz Winters

There's a section of the poem that is reminding me of something, but I just can't quite put my finger on it:

[...] The last time, four months off of

medication in the city I swore would save me, I screamed

at you in the kitchen WE CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS

IF WE KEEP DOING THIS WHEN IT IS OVER

WHEN IS IT GOING TO STOP & you put out

your hands to calm the caged animal of my body

It might be "The Black Dog" - "How my rain-soaked body was shaking ... Old habits die screaming." Or maybe "You're Losing Me" - "How long could we be a sad song? / Til we were too far gone to bring back to life." I also think "Is It Over Now?" might be a match based on the above, but I don't think it responds to the poem as a whole.

Since there are two instances of a lake being mentioned in the poem, and the tone of both the poem and the song seem to complement each other, I think "the lakes" may be the one. "On the walk to work I pass the crowd / of people who go to the lake to be alone" and "I've never seen the lake they chose over my love / but with all that talk I have to believe it's beautiful." As far as a response, it does seem like the narrators are in conversation with each other. The narrator of the song explains why she has to go to the lakes, and the narrator of the poem is at home, wondering why her friends left her for the lake.

It's been so interesting to see how the poets respond. I especially like instances like this one, where it seems like the poet is in conversation with, and actually talking to the person narrating the song. There have been others that take one small section of a song and create an entirely different idea with it, and those that create a new piece of art with the outline of the lyrics as a guide. I really love seeing all the different, creative ways that these poems developed.

Invisible Strings - 38. "Broken Feather Bad Boyfriend Blues" by Marilyn Chin

"Broken Feather Bad Boyfriend Blues" by Marilyn Chin

There are two matches that are coming to mind with this poem. The less obvious is "champagne problems." There are two lines in the poem that definitely ring some bells - "The Swift Modest Proposal one knee on the ground / The London Fog erased us you vanished without a sound." And they sound an awful lot like, "I never was ready so I watch you go / Sometimes you just don't know the answer / Til someone's on their knees and asks you."

However, it's too hard for me not to choose "The Albatross" when albatross appears three times in the poem. Both the poem and the song end with a strong image of the narrator - in the poem, "I am the immortal albatross I am the one," and in the song, "She's the albatross / She is here to destroy you."

Invisible Strings - 37. "The Lucky One" by Diane Seuss

"The Lucky One" by Diane Seuss

It may be too obvious, but I'm going to go ahead and pick "The Lucky One" as the song that this poem is responding to.

I do think that the song and the poem progress similarly, both chronicling the arc of lifetimes. The poem first mentions her father, then goes on to talk about how her own life developed. The song first talks about a nameless star and their trajectory through fame and fortune, and how the narrator idolizes them. Then the song flips, and the narrator becomes the famous one, and she now understands why the star "took the money and your dignity and got the hell out."

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In Taylor-related news, the Chiefs won the AFC Championship against the Philadelphia Eagles last night, and we got some super sweet pics of her and Travis. Only wishing the very best for them and continued happiness as the years pass 🤍

Invisible Strings - 36. "Hark, the Raucous Heiress Speaks" by Shikha Malaviya

"Hark, the Raucous Heiress Speaks" by Shikha Malaviya

I love that this poet was familiar with High Watch/Holiday House or did some digging into it, in what I can only assume is a response to "The Last Great American Dynasty."

It seems that the poem was narrated by Rebekah Harkness, who Taylor wrote the song about. The parallels between the two are so interesting, and honestly a bit uncanny. But that's why we're here, right? Invisible strings! 

I've always thought of "This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" and "The Last Great American Dynasty" and being linked - the former being the "first version" if you will, with parties and excess, and the latter being the more grown-up version looking back into time and drawing parallels. Maybe (likely) she knew about the connection all along, but the two songs have always felt to me like they were in conversation with each other.

Invisible Strings - 35. "the much-maligned swiftie considers her options" by Stephanie Burt

"the much-maligned swiftie considers her options" by Stephanie Burt

There's a repeating line in the poem that certainly points to a specific album: "I'm in my reputation era."

I can't remember where I read it, but I really found it interesting that someone pointed out that Taylor's lead singles rarely ever actually match the tone or the message of the accompanying albums. A few to consider: "Shake It Off," "Look What You Made Me Do," "ME!" "Anti-Hero." They're almost red herrings, and "Look What You Made Me Do" certainly was one. The song was released on August 24, 2017 with the music video following just a few days later on August 27. It had been three years since she'd released 1989, and I was in a state of constant anticipation to get any tidbit I could about the single or the album in the days before its release. Her Instagram went black, then there were the snake images. I was so into it. Admittedly, I didn't really know what to think about LWYMMD on the first few listens, but the music video certainly added another layer to it. I was in, hook, line and sinker. The marketing and imagery were so brilliant, but it really was a "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" moment, because reputation was most definitely an album about a blossoming relationship and not one about revenge, like we'd all been expecting. Either way, it became an instant fave, and to this day, there's still not a track that I skip on it.

All that to say, that if there's a track that symbolizes reputation in anyone's mind, I think it has to be "Look What You Made Me Do." 

Invisible Strings - 34. "Tempered" by Teri Ellen Cross Davis

"Tempered" by Teri Ellen Cross Davis

As The Eras Tour continued into 2024 and The Tortured Poets Department was added to the setlist, "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" definitely got its moment. Everyone was, of course, stunned by "Down Bad" and the UFO and roomba (and made the spoofy internet content to prove it), but "Smallest Man" did eventually get its due respect. As far as songs that translated from the recorded version to the live version, I'd venture to say it was maybe one of the best. Especially with all the theatrics and everyone in the audience screaming along.

So, to the poem. The mention of "sparkling summer" and "rusting" are reminiscent of "I just want to know / If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal" in the song. And for a few additional matches:

Poem: "From bar to bed, you showed me off"

Song: "In public, showed me off"

Poem: "By fall I'd be alone with dents in my crown"

Song: "Once your queen had come / You treat her like an also-ran"

Poem: "what is it about small men / when they meet a woman worth knowing?"

Song: "And I don't miss what we had, but could someone give / A message to the smallest man who ever lived"

Poem: "The pinup becomes a push pin"

Song: "You hung me on your wall / Stabbed me with your push pins"