Course:The Lakes, from folklore by Taylor Swift
"the lakes", from folklore, by Taylor Swift
| CRWR 501P 003 |
|---|
 |
| Advanced Writing of Poetry |
|
| Important Course Pages |
| Categories |
“the lakes” is a song by Taylor Swift from her album folklore. You can find the song on Spotify here. Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter whose works span many genres and styles; you will likely see me reference her work again, as I listen to her a lot.
“the lakes” is about the narrator’s desire to escape to a quiet place, away from the pressures of social media and other markers of modern life. Swift writes:
I'm not cut out for all these cynical clones These hunters with cell phones
In addition to pondering escape, Swift muses on the state of being a writer. She names her longing for the romance of a simpler life, somewhere filled with inspiration and free of the things that trouble her. She also hints at a tendency to be too emotional for the city, needing time alone to ponder her feelings:
I want auroras and sad prose
I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet
'Cause I haven't moved in years
And I want you right here
A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground
With no one around to tweet it
While I bathe in cliffside pools
With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief
This song fanned an interest in autobiographical poetry/lyric, especially using “writer” as a frame. I think there is a lot of romance in writing as a calling, writing as an activity, and writing as a coping mechanism. “the lakes” caused me to think more deeply about my own daily routines as a writer, and encouraged me to romanticize these routines. In addition, I found myself more drawn to physical spaces where I could find inspiration, like my apartment balcony in the sunshine, or Sasamat Lake. You can see its influence in the following works of mine:
"hymns"
i found god in lonesomeness
glory in solitude
i go hours without speaking and
equally as many without shutting up
i pray into my kitchen cabinets
as i make myself lunch at four thirty
i tell them about my imaginings
and have conversations with nobody
i dip my hands in flat diet coke and
cross myself
i allow myself to give in to the dizziness and
listen to the hymn that my blood pumps through my brain.
"waking up"
your skin is slowly, coldly warming, your
laptop keys responsive
a trickle of water from your hair, reserved for your neck from
the walk in the rain
from a friend’s house
you hold your lavender latte in your puffy red cheeks and
let the heat slowly down your throat
waiting for a lover, carried on a bus, carried on the wind,
to enter and find you,
you,
who has forgotten what the warm and the cold feels like
you are starting to remember, you wait,
tick-tick-ticking out some serifed words
that will wait in turn
to remind you again,
when the trickle of water falls on numb nerves,
what hope feels like.