Taylor Swift Is Reportedly Related to Poet Emily Dickinson—Which May Confirm a Tortured Poets Fan Theory
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One great American poet is apparently related to another. According to Ancestry.com, Taylor Swift’s sixth cousin three times removed is none other than Emily Dickinson.
Ancestry first revealed this information to Today before sharing its findings in an Instagram post laden with Taylor Swift references. “We need to calm down…but how can we when we have BIG news!?” the post began. “Renowned American poets Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson are 6th cousins, three times removed. Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut). Guess we can truly say that all’s fair in love and poetry.”
According to the Ancestry website, the company draws its findings through a combination of DNA testing as well as “official record sources, including newspapers, as well as birth, death, marriage, and census records.” It’s currently unclear how Ancestry made this specific alleged discovery or how Swift feels about the report, though CNN has reached out to Swift’s team for comment.
Born in 1830, Emily Dickinson produced a profound body of work that clearly serves as inspiration for the 34-year-old pop star. “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre,” Swift said of songs like “Ivy” and “Evermore” while accepting Nashville Songwriters Association International's award for songwriter-artist of the decade in 2022. Both of those songs were featured on Swift’s second album of 2020, Evermore, which was released on Dickinson’s birthday, December 10.
In that NSAI speech, Swift revealed she categorizes her songs by the “writing tool I imagined having in my hand when I scribbled [the lyrics] down. I don’t have a quill. Anymore. I broke it when I was mad.” Quill lyrics, she said, feature “words and phrasings (that) are antiquated, if I was inspired to write it after reading Charlotte Brontë or after watching a movie where everyone is wearing poet shirts and corsets.” (The other categories include Fountain Pen Lyrics and Glitter Pen Lyrics, which you can read about here.)
With track titles like “The Albatross” and “The Alchemy,” it feels safe to say there will be plenty of Quill lyrics on her next album, The Tortured Poets Department, dropping on April 19. Some fans already suspected this date is a reference to a Dickinson piece often categorized as poem 419, also known as “We grow accustomed to the Dark”:
We grow accustomed to the Dark—
When Light is put away—
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye—A Moment—We uncertain step
For newness of the night—
Then—fit our Vision to the Dark—
And meet the Road—erect—And so of larger—Darknesses—
Those Evenings of the Brain—
When not a Moon disclose a sign—
Or Star—come out—within—The Bravest—grope a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.
Make of that what you will.
Swiftie Stuff
Taylor Swift couldn't help but use one of her Grammys acceptance speeches to announce her 11th studio album.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
