Hits Different - (Quarternote Chapbook) by Stephanie Burt & Kristie Frederick Dougherty (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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

Review Quotes

Praise for HITS DIFFERENT:

"Hits Different: Poems Not By Taylor Swift manages to be two solo acts and a collaborative duet at once. Burt and Daugherty are foundational Swift scholars, curators, and unabashed fans, capable of responding to her with a measure of distance and fall-into-her devotion at once. Both poets experiment with contemporized traditional forms here, but we also witness how influence, too, can function as form. Swift's oeuvre, her lexicon, her mystery, frame and restrain like one of her bejeweled corsets. But corsets are designed to be unlaced. Compression implies release. Even the chapbook's title announces (by mirroring a Taylor Swift title) that these poems will "hit different," that they are not by Taylor Swift. Burt and Daugherty claim authorship in collaboration with and resistance to their muse. It's thrilling to read women who honor the Mother even as they give birth to themselves."
--Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets and Modern Poetry

Praise for TAYLOR'S VERSION:

"Taylor Swift treats her own life as worthy of artistic obsession and grandeur; Stephanie Burt treats her oeuvre as worthy of academic and poetic attention.In Taylor's Version, Burt not only articulates the force of Swift's songwriting genius, but--perhaps more importantly--makes the case for her place in the literary tradition. A provocative, sharp, well-argued book for any Taylor Swift fan--or skeptic." --Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

"Depending on your feelings toward Ms. Swift, you may or may not want to like this book. Too bad, it's going to make you like it, and see the phenomenon in a way you never have before." --Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making

"Taylor Swift is lucky to have a fan, a listener, and a writer as open to her music and as acute to its internal and emotional rhythms, Swift's craft and her audience's response, as Stephanie Burt. With unfailing lucidity, empathy, and wit, she takes a reader through the songs, until you can hear, all over again, how they really work." --Greil Marcus, music journalist

"This is an outstanding look at one of the world's most beloved entertainers... a smart, incisive look at the singer-songwriter who has captured the world's imagination." --Kirkus (starred)

Praise for INVISIBLE STRINGS: 113 POETS RESPOND TO THE SONGS OF TAYLOR SWIFT

"Meditative, varied, and visceral, paying tribute to Swift's love of words and her deeply felt passions . . . [an] indelible, beautiful collection." --Booklist

About the Author

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.