Hits Different
Description
Hits Different is a sharp collection of poems for, about, and inspired by Taylor Swift.
Poems include Frederick Daugherty’s own rendition of “Karma,” “Clean,” and “Anti-Hero." Much like Swift’s own oeuvre, Hits Different is a collection about friendship, loneliness, love, heartbreak and renewal. In Frederick Daugherty's “I Look in People’s Windows,” the speaker dreams of meeting an old love only to wake up with feelings of betrayal. Nods to a divine source are sprinkled throughout the collection, such as in Burt’s “The Prophecy” which is reminiscent of Patti Smith’s opening lines to “Gloria” “I have wandered into waters to unbaptize myself:...unholy ghost.”
Swifties will find the poems full of Easter eggs, hints, and nods to the icon herself, while poetry readers will feel the pang, agony, and ecstasy of love in all its forms and transformations. Hits Different is not only an homage to Taylor Swift but a recreation and reimagining of the poetry, ache, and romance that will be cherished by Swifties and “new romantics” worldwide.
Hits Different is #20 in Sarabande's Quarternote Chapbook Series
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Persons
Stephanie Burt is Donald and Katherine Loker Professor of English at Harvard. Her many books of poetry and literary criticism include Taylor's Version: The Musical and Poetic Genius of Taylor Swift (2025); Super Gay Poems: LGBTQ Poetry After Stonewall (2025); We Are Mermaids (2022) and After Callimachus: Poems and Translations (2020). She has lived in Minnesota, Connecticut, New York, England, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Washington, DC, and you can win her lifelong allegiance by taking her to a Minnesota Lynx game or asking her gently about Kitty Pryde. Burt currently lives in Massachusetts.
Kristie Frederick Daugherty is a poet and a professor. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she is a PhD candidate in Literature/Criticism at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is the editor of Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift, published in December 2024 from Random House, and she has a collection of short stories, Red Scarf Stories, forthcoming from Macmillan in fall 2027. She currently lives in Indiana.