...What Just Happened at the Grammys
And are we ready for poetry to get the Taylor Swift boost?
It was the Grammys last night, a time for Flowers, women, and poetry.
Here’s what happened.
Miley Cyrus channeled Tina Turner in her performance of Flowers, winning her first and second Grammy and Song of the Year.
Women dominated all general categories (SZA and the Barbie/Billie soundtrack each with 3 wins; Miley, Taylor Swift, and Victoria Monét each with 2), which is surreal to think about when just a few years before there were so few women that in 2017, Recording Academy president Neil Portnoy called for women to “step it up”. Guess they did, huh?
Oh, and Taylor Swift made an announcement that may single-handedly prevent the mainstream poetry apocalypse. Should there ever be a collective moment in recent time when poetry shall be saved, that moment may be now.
What, how, why in five brief moments:
1
At 6:35PM PST, Taylor Swift wins the award for Best Pop Vocal Album. She takes the stage to accept her award, and with palpable excitement that some call awkward, she announces her next album titled The Tortured Poets Department. It’ll be her 11th album and will come out on April 19, 2024, which also happens to be National Cat Lady Day, and right in the midst of National Poetry Month, and also a year and 11 days after the day her long-term relationship breakup was announced on April 8, 2023.
Swifties all over the world gasp. It’s not what they expected. Some had been picking up Taylor’s clues—the cryptic message on her website just hours before, the Easter eggs going back years, the black outfits she’d been seen wearing over the last few months—and settled on Taylor announcing her re-record of Reputation, her second to last before finishing up with Debut.
But on this night, she happened to be wearing a white gown with black gloves. Now they have their answer. White for the TPD. White for blank spaces pages, manuscripts, notebooks.
2
Earlier in the night, Trevor Noah opens the Grammys with a monologue during which he makes a joke about Taylor’s economic impact:
As Taylor Swift moves around the room, the local economy around her improves.
Look at that, he says, as the camera pans to Taylor. Genial laughter ensues, and it’s not the awkward kind of the Jo Koy variety.
It’s true: Taylor Swift not only moves people to sing and dance, she moves people to spend money and pay attention. In 2023, after Taylor Swift started dating football player Travis Kelce, in just a few short months that led to an estimated boost to the NFL of $122 million in value and its highest viewership among women in over two decades. Mayors and prime ministers practically beg Taylor to come to their vicinity for the goodwill of her fans, yes, but also for the money she brings to the local economy. Estimates are in the $5 billion range for Eras Tour consumer spending so far.
Taylor Swift is among the very small crop of people today who has mastered the art of getting and keeping attention. She is arguably the very best at it. She leverages her “calculating” self, a label many of her detractors bestow upon her, and engineers easter eggs and mysteries and her very own sans-tech bro metaverse. Now the world’s her literal stage and she’s on the Crypto.com one on this night in February.
3
At the Grammys, Taylor’s announcement has a lukewarm response. Online, the fever starts (fans, haters, and “I’m not a Swiftie but…”s).
At the Grammys, there are three standing ovations for other iconic women in music: one each for Celine Dion, Joni Mitchell, and Tracy Chapman.
At the Grammys, Tracy Chapman performs her beloved song Fast Car with country star Luke Combs, 35 years after she first performed it at the Grammys in 1989. The song is about a woman whose life hasn’t turned out the way she wanted.
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
Tracy Chapman started writing poems as a kid. But in this 1982 interview, when asked whether she saw writing poetry as the same as writing songs, Tracy said “No, I don't. They are different. For anyone who wants their ideas expressed in this country, poetry isn't a great vehicle. I think it's something like 3% of the population who read poetry. Poetry calls for the actual reading, attention ... but with songs, you can do anything while you listen."
Tracy Chapman isn’t the only artist on stage last night who started writing poems as a kid before turning to music. So did SZA, Victoria Monét, Taylor Swift. Probably others. Olivia Rodrigo took a college poetry class at USC last year. Lana Del Rey’s lyrics are practically poetry, and if that’s not enough, she wrote and published an actual poetry book. It might not be enough—Lana has not won a single Grammy, ever.
4
When it comes to the Grammys, no one really talks about poetry. That’s partly because until 2023, poetry wasn’t a category. But just last year, in 2023, after having lobbied for six years to split the Best Spoken Word Album so that poets don’t have to compete with presidents and Meryl Streep, a new category/genre was created. And at the 2023 Grammys, poet J. Ivy won the first ever award for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album.
A year later at the 2024 Grammys, J. Ivy wins for the second year in the row for his poetry album, The Light Inside.
In his acceptance speech, his call to action was to “let the poetry in our hearts whisper sweet lullabies that will rock our hurt to sleep and wake up the true essence of who we are.”
He ended by saying, “The world needs more poets.”
Later in the night on February 4, 2024 at 8:31PM PST, Taylor Swift wins Album of the Year for Midnights for the fourth time, about 13 sleepless nights throughout her life. She’s putting Midnights to bed and bringing The Tortured Poets Department to life. Swifties note immediately that the title doesn’t follow her typical one-word album naming convention (“Speak Now” being the anomaly). Some keep accidentally calling it The Dead Poets Society after the 1989 film. Others suggest nicknaming it “Poets”.
5
When Taylor was 10 years old she won a national contest for poetry. She’s mentioned poetry in song lyrics and interviews throughout her career. But now at 34 she will release an entire album that harks back to her childhood poet. Of course, people immediately say she’s acting like a 14 year old still living in her Tumblr era. Some call it cringe. That won’t stop her from making her art and making money.
She captions her announcement, All’s fair in love and poetry.
Poetry is having its moment, or it’s about to. It’s not just because of Taylor Swift. Not nearly. But if anyone could have any unofficial spokesperson for anything and make it count, to make people feel something, Taylor Swift could be the 1.
It's already shaping up to be her most contentious era. It's hard not to be this divisive when you're this famous. Taylor’s never been more famous, and poetry is the extra layer of divisive. (You being here reading this newsletter means you get it or you’re curious at the very least.) But if Taylor managed to become the music industry and the film industry and the football industry, and now she has a shot of being the poetry industry. This joke about her impact seems a little crass now but translation: Poetry has the spotlight, the opportunity, the economic possibilities. Poetry does not usually have this. Poets are not known for making money. A lot could happen. Poetry might lift out of the fringes, more people of all ages could get curious about poetry, poetry sales could go up. Cue the "not real poetry" opinions.
This could just be how in 2024, after struggling to stay alive but beating through the pulse of passionate poets through the ages—because poetry has never died and never will—with the tap-tap-tap of music’s wand, the world will start to read, write, and sing poetry again.
Are you ready for it?
It’s a given that nearly everyone will be listening to Taylor Swift’s poetic rendition of pop when it lands in April, including me.
For now, may I present to you instead the category nominees of the Best Spoken Word Poetry Album 2024, for your listening pleasure.
Here’s to the poets!
J. Ivy (Winner):
Prentice Powell and Shawn William, Queen Sheba, Kevin Powell, Aja Monet (Nominees):
I've sensed for a while poetry was about to have a new wave of attention and a revamp. Not because of Taylor (though, she may be the beacon that lights the way), but because of the collective themes of healing, reclamation, therapy, trauma and becoming more in touch with the internal world. That descent from mind to heart/body means we have to turn to new, more relatable content as we enter a new expression of our individual beingness. And poetry, offers it in such depth and intimacy BECAUSE you have to sit with it and be present, and not be doing other things (which fits with our growing openness to be with ourselves, coupled with the collective longing for true, deep connection).
Many warm suns are on the horizon for poetry, and I eagerly anticipate its wider contribution to our collective softening x
Thank you for this. As a poet, I am excited!