6A —Monday, November 27, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
BIG MACHINE
What happened, Tay??
Who is to blame for Swift’s
latest album ‘reputation’?
The new album is a digression from the Taylor we knew & loved
When
I
turned
16,
my
friend gave me a copy of
Taylor Swift’s then newest
album,
Red,
to
accompany
me in my newfound freedom
behind the wheel. Much of
the
record
soundtracked
my late night drives spent
fabricating scenarios where
her own experiences were
also applicable to my life.
The album opens with the
stunning “State of Grace,”
where
Taylor
chronicles
the highs and lows of love
amid a bouncing drum beat
and guitar-driven melodies.
My first “heartbreak” was
partially mended with the help
of “We Are Never Ever Getting
DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Daily Arts Writer
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
DAILY LITERATURE COLUMN
The indomitable power
of Anna Akhmatova
Early last year, I was on a
quest to find poets I thought
were like Bob Dylan. I didn’t
want replicas of him, but I was
inspired by the instantaneous
ways he could access symbolism,
and the way in which he could
pack so much meaning into the
span of only a few lyrics. I knew
these were literary qualities,
and I wanted to find a style of
poetry that excited me as much
as the style of his songwriting.
Naturally,
I
went
first
to
Dylan’s
own
admitted
influences:
Dylan
Thomas,
Arthur Rimbaud, even Paul
Verlaine to a certain extent. I
definitely saw where Dylan had
gotten a lot of what he used:
the innovative amalgamations
of
language,
the
empathic
attention to specific moments.
But Thomas’s work didn’t make
a whole lot of sense to me at
the time, and for some reason,
Rimbaud’s didn’t really do it for
me, either.
I soon drifted out of the
phase, and over the course of
the past year, I’ve coincidentally
run into a few poets who have
done the trick for me — W.H.
Auden would probably be the
strongest example.
But recently, I found someone
who completely hits the nail on
the head: Anna Akhmatova.
By “hits the nail on the head,”
let me clarify that I don’t mean
she sounds like Bob Dylan.
No poet should be lauded for
convincingly
sounding
like
another
one.
(Anyway,
she
came first, so it might be more
accurate to say he sounds like
her.) Instead, I mean that she
captures
moments
with
an
uncanny completion; she pays
enormous attention to detail, yet
is careful not to let that detail
overpower her own voice. In
short, she is one of those poets
whose work makes you know
that you’ve felt it.
Akhmatova
was
born
in
1889 and spent her life in
Russia. Much of her life was
affected by the turbulence of
Russian politics at the time;
her expansive poem “Requiem”
deals with the subject of the
Stalinist terror, which saw the
arrest of her son and the arrest
and execution of her husband,
Nikolay Gumilyov. Many of her
friends were also killed, and at
one point her poetry was barred
from publication.
As someone who lived through
two world wars and a great deal
of
domestic
conflict
within
Russia, her work is contoured
with politics: She describes the
torment of wishing for her son’s
freedom and the conflict of not
knowing whether or not to leave
the country, but she was also
patriotic. She regularly read
her work to soldiers in hospitals
and on the front lines, even
while the forces of the political
climate closed in on her from all
sides. During a period of time
in which Stalin was constantly
monitoring her, she, along with
other Russian writers of the
time period, would pass along
poems orally, or by writing them
down, reading them aloud and
then immediately burning them.
One story that struck me in
particular happened in the early
1930s. Akhmatova’s son was
imprisoned at the time, and she
would go regularly to deliver
food for him. One day, a woman
recognized her outside a stone
prison and asked in a whisper,
“Can you describe this?” When
Akhmatova replied, “I can,” she
would later describe “something
like a smile (passing) fleetingly
over what had once been (the
woman’s) face.”
These
stories
about
Akhmatova’s life and approach
to
writing
represent
what
is often the most powerful
about literature as a whole.
Akhmatova’s
profession
was
that of a writer, and yet even that
was power enough to change the
lives of those around her — the
woman, whose lips Akhmatova
described as “blue from cold,”
knew
Akhmatova
may
not
have been able to help her in a
tangible sense. But by describing
what she saw at the prison,
she altered that story, and she
gave that woman a voice. She
was committed enough to her
writing to memorize and burn
her own work to prevent her
ideas from being compromised,
and committed enough to her
country to stay and try to help
her fellow citizens even while
she herself was on the verge of
being arrested.
This tension and patriotic
conflict
can
be
seen
in
Akhmatova’s work, along with
her
personal
stubbornness
and authoritative will. In both
her personal relationships and
her poetry, Akhmatova was
constantly asserting her own
agency. However, her poems
also highlight beauty, intimacy
and nature in ways that are
touchingly genuine. Her poem
“Snow,” for instance, is no less
vivid or gentle than Robert
Frost’s famous “Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
“Lot’s Wife” recounts a familiar
legend with a voice of pure
empathy; “Willow” is honest
and mournful.
A good poem, in many ways,
LAURA
DZUBAY
has the same goal as a good song.
It will come at you honestly. It
will be vivid and well-spoken.
Maybe it will tell you the story
of a specific person or a place, in
the hope that you will come to
understand that person or place
better than you had before.
It will show you something
emotional, and you will be
glad to have seen it — what’s
more, maybe now you will have
something to show to somebody
else.
Every
writer
does
this
differently. Anna Akhmatova
did
it
with
a
power
and
determination that would be
amazing to find anywhere,
but are especially amazing
given the context of her life.
No change ever really stops
happening, and many of the
works that Akhmatova was
known for throughout her life
are still useful to us today if we
wish to understand not only her
and her surroundings, but also
the importance of literary work
to humanity in general.
Back Together.” Red represents
all of Swift’s best qualities,
an icon perfectly balancing
the line between pop queen
and charming indie singer-
songwriter;
it’s
an
honest
record filled with grounded
human
emotions
—
honest
enough to reach through to an
angsty, punk-fueled 16-year-
old. Swift followed up Red
with 2014’s 1989, where she
finally took a bigger leap into
the realm of pop music without
really losing the emotional
attainability of her previous
work, albeit being slightly less
memorable than Red.
So what the hell happened
with reputation?
On her latest record, “the new
Taylor” is a canvas for her worst
facets, seemingly exacerbated
by the media. The new Taylor
is unlovable, but she’s also
promiscuous. The new Taylor is
bad, but she can’t be blamed for
it. reputation is quite frankly
a jarring album, which could
have been easily predicted from
the first single. In 2017, Swift
presents herself as messy and
scattered, expertly explained
by fellow Daily writer Danny
Madion in his review. She damn
near did the impossible and
made her music hard to like on
reputation.
Don’t
get
me
wrong,
reputation
isn’t
entirely
insufferable. “Dancing With
Our Hands Tied,” minus the
cringe-worthy, EDM drenched
chorus, is a pretty decent work
of modern pop. Swift shows
her sexual side on “Dress” in
a more emotional way devoid
of the inflammatory finger-
pointing seen on “Delicate”
and “Gorgeous.” But for all its
merited moments, reputation
shows a side of Swift that
serves to sever the personal
connection many listeners had
with her and her narratives.
With a full move to bombastic
pop, Swift’s musical focus shifts
from her reflections on love
and life to examine her portrait
in the public eye, producing
dismal,
almost
nauseating
results.
Most troubling is trying to
determine just how much of
this is actually Swift’s fault.
For almost a decade, she has
been
plagued
by
negative
media coverage. It has hovered
over
and
dissected
her
character ruthlessly, ripping
her interpersonal interactions
with other celebrities (both
good and bad) to shreds. Can
we reasonably expect Swift to
ignore it all? Did we really think
she’d write another sappy love
record steeped with the deeply
personal narratives the media
so greedily analyzed? Swift
showed a critical and clever
self-awareness of her current
image on “Look What You
Made Me Do,” but beyond this,
her lyricism on reputation holds
little weight in its attempt at
justification for her treatment
by the media.
As non-celebrities, it can
be hard for us to put ourselves
into
the
shoes
of
massive
stars. In Swift’s case, it can
be
even
harder
when
the
media
continuously
paints
her
innocent
country
girl
aesthetic as a veil for a more
insidious, heartless pop star.
One can only assume another
narrative-driven love record
would be turned inside-out by
the media, further pinning her
under the weight of her self-
crafted persona. It’s really no
surprise that Swift wants to be
excluded from her own public
narrative. reputation puts Swift
at her most self-conscious, and
in writing the album, as poor as
it is, Swift excels at emptying
the fuel the media has used
for years to keep her on the
front burner. What she has left
them are lyrics accepting or
confronting every slanderous
headline that has already been
written about her.
In
hindsight,
reputation
was a very natural response
to the way Swift’s image has
been morphed and mutilated
by the public eye. Swift had
been backed into a corner, left
with little else to write about.
I don’t blame her for becoming
defensive. I don’t blame her
for trying to remove herself
from the narrative. I don’t
blame her for writing her most
aggressive pop album yet even
if it’s at the cost of listenability
and likability. For now, I’ll
continue to love the old Taylor,
to sing along to “Red” and
“Better Than Revenge,” and
to hope that Swift will rise
from the ashes of reputation
like
a
pissed-off
phoenix
with vengeful pop of a higher
caliber.
In hindsight,
reputation was
a very natural
response to the
way Swift’s image
has been morphed
and mutilated by
the public eye