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The Slicks: On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift
A keen, ardent celebration of unbridled female ambition in the work of Taylor Swift and Sylvia Plath
In The Slicks, Maggie Nelson positions culture-dominating pop superstar Taylor Swift and feminist cult icon Sylvia Plath as twin hosts of the female urge toward wanting hard, working hard, and pouring forth―and as twinned targets of patriarchy’s ancient urge to disparage, trivialize, and discipline creative work by women rooted in autobiography and abundance.
A buoyant melding of popular culture and literary criticism, The Slicks is a captivating and unexpected assessment of two iconic female artists by one of the most revered and influential critics of her generation.
In The Slicks, Maggie Nelson positions culture-dominating pop superstar Taylor Swift and feminist cult icon Sylvia Plath as twin hosts of the female urge toward wanting hard, working hard, and pouring forth―and as twinned targets of patriarchy’s ancient urge to disparage, trivialize, and discipline creative work by women rooted in autobiography and abundance.
A buoyant melding of popular culture and literary criticism, The Slicks is a captivating and unexpected assessment of two iconic female artists by one of the most revered and influential critics of her generation.
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Published November 25, 2025
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About the author
Maggie Nelson
40 books4,590 followersMaggie Nelson is the author of nine books of poetry and prose, many of which have become cult classics defying categorization. Her nonfiction titles include the National Book Critics Circle Award winner and New York Times bestseller The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015), The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Norton, 2011; a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Bluets (Wave Books, 2009; named by Bookforum as one of the top 10 best books of the past 20 years), The Red Parts (Free Press, 2007; reissued by Graywolf, 2016), and Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (U of Iowa Press, 2007). Her poetry titles include Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and Jane: A Murder (Soft Skull, 2005; finalist for the PEN/ Martha Albrand Art of the Memoir). In 2016 she was awarded a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship. She has also been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction, an NEA in Poetry, an Innovative Literature Fellowship from Creative Capital, and an Arts Writers Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation. She writes frequently on art, including recent catalogue essays on Carolee Schneemann and Matthew Barney. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and has taught literature, writing, art, criticism and theory at the New School, Pratt Institute, and Wesleyan University. For 12 years she taught in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts; in fall 2017 she will join the faculty of USC. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
October 14, 2025
I’m not a fan of Taylor Swift and haven’t been since I was maybe thirteen or fourteen, but I am a fan of Maggie Nelson and going into this I had hopes for an interesting & insightful critique & exploration of Swift & Plath, and the environments that they exist in. This was not that. I am genuinely baffled at this being the same person who wrote Bluets, The Red Parts, Jane, The Argonauts, Something Bright, Then Holes…
I came into this with an open mind. I thought this was going to be an examination of music, art & how being a woman makes those things more challenging, of how it is harder to be taken seriously, of all the hurdles women in art face that simply do not exist for men—while also holding Swift accountable. I think there is an interesting conversation to be had around misogyny and the alienation and ridicule of women, and how this opens the door for them to become, in Taylor Swift’s sense at least, selfish and abandoning of morals in pursuit of recognition. Nelson touches on how women are held to a higher standard than men, but does so in a way that suggests she thinks Swift should not be held accountable of anything she has done wrong simply because of these double standards.
Instead of a fair and considered essay, The Slicks is a jumbled and half-hearted array of thoughts that all boil down into the sentiment that ‘if a woman is doing something then that makes it feminist’. The whole thing is very out of touch, surface level and to me at least seems at odds with everything else Maggie Nelson has published. This paired with how thoughtless The Slicks seems makes me think that this is really just a piece of work trying to capitalise on Taylor Swift’s name—there is no criticality, no nuance, and quite honestly nothing of any importance being said.
Nelson highlights how Swift’s success is poorly perceived because she is a woman with power, and how this resentment is particularly strong in ‘MAGA/incel circles’ but fails to mention Swift’s close friendships with people firmly inside of those MAGA circles, namely Brittany Mahomes, who is an avid Trump supporter. Nelson praises Swift of her success and seems to think people looking down on her is wrong, while also saying that ‘pop music; it ain’t poetry’. Nelson criticises misogynistic threat and remarks, while also calling Swift a ‘serial dater’, a term that even I know has been used against Swift as a way to dismiss her, and a term that would never be used when discussing a man.
The worst of it all, though, is when Nelson writes: ‘Nor does Swift’s work bear, as Plath’s infamously does, traces of some of the worst historical catastrophes on record – namely, the Holocaust, with its incinerating violence, and its chaotic landscape of victims, perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders. […] These differences are accidents of fate, personality, epoch and medium; it is not a moral contest.’ and critically misses the mark. Here Nelson draws their similarities: both young women creating; both during catastrophic genocides. Only, one of them is silent—how can this be reduced to an accident of fate? Or an accident of any kind?
I came into this with an open mind. I thought this was going to be an examination of music, art & how being a woman makes those things more challenging, of how it is harder to be taken seriously, of all the hurdles women in art face that simply do not exist for men—while also holding Swift accountable. I think there is an interesting conversation to be had around misogyny and the alienation and ridicule of women, and how this opens the door for them to become, in Taylor Swift’s sense at least, selfish and abandoning of morals in pursuit of recognition. Nelson touches on how women are held to a higher standard than men, but does so in a way that suggests she thinks Swift should not be held accountable of anything she has done wrong simply because of these double standards.
Instead of a fair and considered essay, The Slicks is a jumbled and half-hearted array of thoughts that all boil down into the sentiment that ‘if a woman is doing something then that makes it feminist’. The whole thing is very out of touch, surface level and to me at least seems at odds with everything else Maggie Nelson has published. This paired with how thoughtless The Slicks seems makes me think that this is really just a piece of work trying to capitalise on Taylor Swift’s name—there is no criticality, no nuance, and quite honestly nothing of any importance being said.
Nelson highlights how Swift’s success is poorly perceived because she is a woman with power, and how this resentment is particularly strong in ‘MAGA/incel circles’ but fails to mention Swift’s close friendships with people firmly inside of those MAGA circles, namely Brittany Mahomes, who is an avid Trump supporter. Nelson praises Swift of her success and seems to think people looking down on her is wrong, while also saying that ‘pop music; it ain’t poetry’. Nelson criticises misogynistic threat and remarks, while also calling Swift a ‘serial dater’, a term that even I know has been used against Swift as a way to dismiss her, and a term that would never be used when discussing a man.
The worst of it all, though, is when Nelson writes: ‘Nor does Swift’s work bear, as Plath’s infamously does, traces of some of the worst historical catastrophes on record – namely, the Holocaust, with its incinerating violence, and its chaotic landscape of victims, perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders. […] These differences are accidents of fate, personality, epoch and medium; it is not a moral contest.’ and critically misses the mark. Here Nelson draws their similarities: both young women creating; both during catastrophic genocides. Only, one of them is silent—how can this be reduced to an accident of fate? Or an accident of any kind?
August 21, 2025
Poet and cultural critic Maggie Nelson offers up a series of reflections on the uneasy relations between women and fame:
“…the voyeurism and sadism, idolatry and demonisation, which characterise our treatment of the famous, especially famous women – and especially those women who traffic in making the personal public, however medicated or anaesthetised.”
Nelson’s title’s taken from an entry in Sylvia Plath’s diary in which she vows to break into “the slicks” – these were glossy, upmarket magazines, highly prestigious spaces that writers were desperately competing to enter. Partly inspired by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department album, Nelson traces a series of possible links between Swift and quintessential ‘tortured poet’ Plath – Swift’s directly referenced Plath in her lyrics and sometimes aspects of her self-presentation. Both have been vocal about their desire for fame.
Nelson’s particularly fascinated by the ways in which so many of Swift’s and/or Plath’s critics have essentially followed the same script in their attempts to cut these women down to size: the underlying violence, the patriarchal, sometimes ‘feral misogyny’ that these efforts represent. Much of which connects to what Nelson terms “the derision of the personal” in women’s writing, often dismissed as “uncooked confessional.” Nelson’s exploration draws extensively on Anne Carson’s essay “The Gender of Sound” which is preoccupied with the policing of women’s mouths/voices. Nelson’s approach is, as always, compelling, deftly combining discipline with passion. But don’t go into this expecting a neatly rounded-off piece. This is more a thinking-through, at times close to a call to arms, stirring associations, raising talking points. And if, like me, you’re both a Swiftie and a fan of Plath's poetry it’s well worth seeking out.
Thanks to Netgalley UK and publisher Fern Press for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
“…the voyeurism and sadism, idolatry and demonisation, which characterise our treatment of the famous, especially famous women – and especially those women who traffic in making the personal public, however medicated or anaesthetised.”
Nelson’s title’s taken from an entry in Sylvia Plath’s diary in which she vows to break into “the slicks” – these were glossy, upmarket magazines, highly prestigious spaces that writers were desperately competing to enter. Partly inspired by Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department album, Nelson traces a series of possible links between Swift and quintessential ‘tortured poet’ Plath – Swift’s directly referenced Plath in her lyrics and sometimes aspects of her self-presentation. Both have been vocal about their desire for fame.
Nelson’s particularly fascinated by the ways in which so many of Swift’s and/or Plath’s critics have essentially followed the same script in their attempts to cut these women down to size: the underlying violence, the patriarchal, sometimes ‘feral misogyny’ that these efforts represent. Much of which connects to what Nelson terms “the derision of the personal” in women’s writing, often dismissed as “uncooked confessional.” Nelson’s exploration draws extensively on Anne Carson’s essay “The Gender of Sound” which is preoccupied with the policing of women’s mouths/voices. Nelson’s approach is, as always, compelling, deftly combining discipline with passion. But don’t go into this expecting a neatly rounded-off piece. This is more a thinking-through, at times close to a call to arms, stirring associations, raising talking points. And if, like me, you’re both a Swiftie and a fan of Plath's poetry it’s well worth seeking out.
Thanks to Netgalley UK and publisher Fern Press for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
August 22, 2025
I will slave and slave until I break into those slicks~ Plath on her commitment and desire to get published in the women's glossy magazines ('slicks')
This is a short thought piece on women, ambition and fame that uses Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift as two examples separated by generations but both publicly castigated for daring to dream big and achieve 'unfeminine' success.
This isn't an academic researched piece - it's freewheeling and intuitive, making connections in Nelson's mind and perception rather than being tied down to textual and other evidence. At times Nelson draws on e.g. Anne Carson and Judith Butler; at others she's making associations that are personal and subjective. What comes over is her love for both Plath and Swift, without putting needless pressure on 'highbrow'/popular culture categories or snobbish distinctions.
Important points about the way women's writing is so frequently dismissed as 'confessional', 'personal' etc. are not new, of course, nor is the trope - going back to classical Greece and Rome - that a woman who puts herself into public space is a 'whore'. But one of the takeaways for me is the way Swift's Eras tour might be conceived as a female epic, a heroine's journey rewritten by her - a triumphant, positive image to set against Plath's 'Lady Lazarus' rising from the dead.
November 14, 2025
If ever you find yourself writing "sure, as far as we know Taylor Swift has never experienced suicidal depression or referenced the Holocaust in her lyrics" you should close the Google Doc and put the biggest magnet you can on your laptop
December 2, 2025
hmmmmm….I enjoyed some of her reflections on fame and femininity and the links between Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift but overall, it fell a bit flat for me. I don’t feel like she said anything that new?
Also - I assume this was written before Taylor Swift was engaged to a trump supporter and before the release of her most recent album. Some parts of the essay already feel a bit outdated…I feel like Maggie Nelson might feel differently about some things now.
I did really enjoy her thoughts on the song, Clara Bow (IYKYN).
Also - I assume this was written before Taylor Swift was engaged to a trump supporter and before the release of her most recent album. Some parts of the essay already feel a bit outdated…I feel like Maggie Nelson might feel differently about some things now.
I did really enjoy her thoughts on the song, Clara Bow (IYKYN).
November 13, 2025
Can young women embrace fame amidst the other cultural expectations of them? Nelson attempts to answer this question by comparing two figures who turn(ed) life into art. The link between them was strengthened by Swift titling her 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department. “Plath … serves as a metonym – as does Swift – for a woman who makes art about a broken heart,” Nelson writes. “When women make the personal public, the charge of whorishness always lurks nearby.” What women are allowed to say and do has always, it seems, attracted public commentary, and “anyone who puts their work into the world, at any level, must learn to navigate between self-protectiveness and risk, becoming harder and staying soft.”
Nelson acknowledges a major tonal difference between Plath and Swift, however. Plath longed for fame but didn’t get the chance to enjoy it; she’s the patron saint of sad-girl poetry and makes frequent reference to death, whereas Swift spotlights joy and female empowerment. It’s a shame this was out of date before it went to print; my advanced copy, at least, isn’t able to comment on Swift’s engagement and the baby rumor mill sure to follow. It would be illuminating to have an afterword in which Nelson discusses the effect of spouses’ competing fame and speculates on how motherhood might change Swift’s art.
Full confession: I’ve only ever knowingly heard one Taylor Swift song, “Anti-Hero,” on the radio in the States. (My assessment was: wordy, angsty, reasonably catchy.) Undoubtedly, I would have gotten more out of this essay were I equally familiar with the two subjects. Nonetheless, it’s fluid and well argued, and I was engaged throughout. If you’re a Swiftie as well as a literary type, you need to read this.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Nelson acknowledges a major tonal difference between Plath and Swift, however. Plath longed for fame but didn’t get the chance to enjoy it; she’s the patron saint of sad-girl poetry and makes frequent reference to death, whereas Swift spotlights joy and female empowerment. It’s a shame this was out of date before it went to print; my advanced copy, at least, isn’t able to comment on Swift’s engagement and the baby rumor mill sure to follow. It would be illuminating to have an afterword in which Nelson discusses the effect of spouses’ competing fame and speculates on how motherhood might change Swift’s art.
Full confession: I’ve only ever knowingly heard one Taylor Swift song, “Anti-Hero,” on the radio in the States. (My assessment was: wordy, angsty, reasonably catchy.) Undoubtedly, I would have gotten more out of this essay were I equally familiar with the two subjects. Nonetheless, it’s fluid and well argued, and I was engaged throughout. If you’re a Swiftie as well as a literary type, you need to read this.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
November 24, 2025
Yeah I’m not convinced sorry!! Editing to add that I can’t stop thinking about this book and am still failing to grasp what the point was or why this half developed idea had to exist in book form at all. I just don’t understand how we got to a place where loving Taylor Swift is supposed to be radical and morally superior while any critique of her means you hate women. Lol. I love Maggie Nelson’s writing but this kind of felt like the print equivalent of clickbait. I’ll ponder it some more though maybe a Taylor loving future me is right around the corner🫡
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December 5, 2025this could’ve been a LitHub article
October 15, 2025
This should have been a dream book for me. I liked parts of it, especially when she talks about what it is to be a poet and poetry as an art form. However, I found the links made between Plath and Swift a little loose and that they carried little weight. I wasn’t madly thrilled by the prose either.
December 12, 2025
maggie nelson surely wrote this for me personally and i am immensely grateful because it is perfect and it fills me with hope that art and criticism and culture like this exists lol
December 4, 2025
Maggie girl why...
December 24, 2025
i’m gratified to see maggie nelson thinking deeply about taylor swift and yet. something about this struck me in a kind of odd way. this essay is written in reaction to TTPD. i know im reading the slicks too late, and this is influencing my takeaway, but all the same: i think id be more interested to hear nelson’s take now, post engagement photo shoot and disney plus multiple part miniseries and podcast album reveal and the song “wood”. 3.5?
Want to read
July 31, 2025АААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААААА
November 8, 2025
This really makes me want to read the Ariel poems again and maybe even listen to some Taylor Swift songs. Thank you Random House UK and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
December 9, 2025
Opin eilen, että Maggie Nelson on Taylor Swift -fani. Tämä oli pieni ja (itselleni) kiinnostavaa essee Sylvia Plathista ja Taylorista. Maggie Nelson osaa kyllä kirjoittaa.
Jäin miettimään sitä, miten Nelson asettaa vastakkain MAGAn naisvihan ja naistähtien menestyksen. Koska essee oon kirjoitettu ja julkaistu ekan kerran jo vuonna 2024, minulla herää kysymys, mitäköhän Nelson mahtaa ajatella Taylorin viimeisimmistä toimista (tai niiden puutteesta), jotka ovat menestyksen mittaluokan takia täysin politisoituneita. Minusta Nelson kirjoittaa Taylorista tämän oman narratiivin mukaisesti ja ohittaa monia mutkittaita aiheita, kuten Taylorin hyvin valkoisen feminismin, hetkittäisen uhriutumisen sekä ylenmääräisen vaurauden ja sen tuonan vastuun tai velvollisuuden. Taylorin tarkastelu kunnianhimoisena kirjoittajana, joka käytttää henkilökohtaisia kokemuksiaan polttoaineena, on toimiva, joskin läpikoluttu. Sanottakoon, että Plathin kanssa tarkasteluun tietysti sopiva.
Enpä tiedä, tekee mieli lukea jotain Sylvia Plathia.
Jäin miettimään sitä, miten Nelson asettaa vastakkain MAGAn naisvihan ja naistähtien menestyksen. Koska essee oon kirjoitettu ja julkaistu ekan kerran jo vuonna 2024, minulla herää kysymys, mitäköhän Nelson mahtaa ajatella Taylorin viimeisimmistä toimista (tai niiden puutteesta), jotka ovat menestyksen mittaluokan takia täysin politisoituneita. Minusta Nelson kirjoittaa Taylorista tämän oman narratiivin mukaisesti ja ohittaa monia mutkittaita aiheita, kuten Taylorin hyvin valkoisen feminismin, hetkittäisen uhriutumisen sekä ylenmääräisen vaurauden ja sen tuonan vastuun tai velvollisuuden. Taylorin tarkastelu kunnianhimoisena kirjoittajana, joka käytttää henkilökohtaisia kokemuksiaan polttoaineena, on toimiva, joskin läpikoluttu. Sanottakoon, että Plathin kanssa tarkasteluun tietysti sopiva.
Enpä tiedä, tekee mieli lukea jotain Sylvia Plathia.
December 14, 2025
I really don't understand this book. feels like a chat gpt comparison or a middle school paper
December 4, 2025
Shoulda stayed in the Notes app fr
November 14, 2025
It was what it said on the tin - nothing revolutionary for those of us who spend our time thinking a lot about Taylor Swift but good and interesting all the same.
November 26, 2025
Goodness even with the easiest targets lined up, it still whiffs like a loser supreme: an antiquated theoretical base propped up by arguments too thin to hold anything together.
September 21, 2025
Maggie Nelson, please come back. I want another 200 pages of this. It was too short to delve into all the avenues you opened up! I picked this up because I was interested in reading what a mind like Nelson's had to say about Taylor Swift. Like her, I find myself constantly in the defensive: I love Taylor Swift, but I feel like I shouldn't and while I interrogate that emotion all the time, I can't escape it. And like Nelson too, I have always been fascinated and drawn in by how much Taylor Swift wants fame and does not hide it. Despite it, the Taylor Swift sections felt a bit underbaked. Some of the songs and lyrics that she used as examples were not the most convincing, although there were flashes of interesting ideas here and there.
However, what Nelson has to say about Sylvia Plath (perhaps because I knew less about her, perhaps because Plath is such a tragic figure, a tragedy that has been exploited) and her desire for fame was much more productive. I think the problem was space: there was so much more to say about the appeal of the personal and our fear of it, and I wanted Nelson to say more about why she is unconvinced of the arguments against the personal that she (rightly) points out tend to re-emerge under new guises every decade.
However, what Nelson has to say about Sylvia Plath (perhaps because I knew less about her, perhaps because Plath is such a tragic figure, a tragedy that has been exploited) and her desire for fame was much more productive. I think the problem was space: there was so much more to say about the appeal of the personal and our fear of it, and I wanted Nelson to say more about why she is unconvinced of the arguments against the personal that she (rightly) points out tend to re-emerge under new guises every decade.
February 27, 2025
i listened to soccer mommy while reading this and the whole time i was thinking about how sophie allison is twice the poet as plath and a many multiples superior musician as tswift. i do love nelson's writing.
ty iris 💌💌
ty iris 💌💌
December 10, 2025
I would never have thought to write about Taylor Swift and Sylvia Plath but Maggie Nelson did and she did a great job! I especially LOVED the end:
When Swift sings 'he was sunshine / I was midnight rain’, I hear Plath excoriating her mother, ‘Don't talk to me about the world needing cheerful stuff.’ When Swift sings 'making my own name, chasing my fame’, I hear Plath's furious vow, 'I will slave and slave until I break into those slicks.’ When Swift sings 'All of me changed like midnight rain,' I hear her and Plath's conjoined commitment to transformation, to going wherever their pour might take them. ‘Every sound we make is a bit of autobiography,’ Carson tells us. Let it rain.
When Swift sings 'he was sunshine / I was midnight rain’, I hear Plath excoriating her mother, ‘Don't talk to me about the world needing cheerful stuff.’ When Swift sings 'making my own name, chasing my fame’, I hear Plath's furious vow, 'I will slave and slave until I break into those slicks.’ When Swift sings 'All of me changed like midnight rain,' I hear her and Plath's conjoined commitment to transformation, to going wherever their pour might take them. ‘Every sound we make is a bit of autobiography,’ Carson tells us. Let it rain.
November 22, 2025
quick, fun read (especially alongside Charlie xcx's substack on fame). well not so fun, more tragic when it comes to Sylvia Plath but well, what can one expect.
the central question here is not so much about why or whether patriarchy resists and constrains women's creativity and voices, this is taken almost as a given. Instead the essay explores women's desires for fame and abundance and what we (or rather, some exceptional women) do with that desire. how do you balance self protection and risk when everything you do us under a microscope? how do you transform and live alongside the myth of yourself? etc.
made more enjoyable by somewhat side-stepping the usual discourses around taylor; not completely ignoring, just not re-hashing. It's fun to go down the rabbit hole with Nelson, who invites you in with a simple shrug and a "fair enough" if the topic just isn't of interest to you.
the central question here is not so much about why or whether patriarchy resists and constrains women's creativity and voices, this is taken almost as a given. Instead the essay explores women's desires for fame and abundance and what we (or rather, some exceptional women) do with that desire. how do you balance self protection and risk when everything you do us under a microscope? how do you transform and live alongside the myth of yourself? etc.
made more enjoyable by somewhat side-stepping the usual discourses around taylor; not completely ignoring, just not re-hashing. It's fun to go down the rabbit hole with Nelson, who invites you in with a simple shrug and a "fair enough" if the topic just isn't of interest to you.
December 3, 2025
If you’ve read a lot of Maggie Nelson’s work you’d probably go in expecting a little bit more (or at least something different than this), but as a Nelson admirer a Sylvia Plath ~and Emily Dickinson~ reader AND a Swiftie this was still quite fun to read. Besides you can read this very quickly as it’s only an essay, so it entertained me well enough on my train journey to work this morning.
November 23, 2025
“I will slave and slave until I break into those slicks.”
great fun, a meditation on fame and womanhood and i love love love when a book takes on a “silly” idea and takes it 100% seriously.
great fun, a meditation on fame and womanhood and i love love love when a book takes on a “silly” idea and takes it 100% seriously.
December 25, 2025
first of the christmas books of 2025 — perhaps i want to be a “critic” when i grow up
November 30, 2025
I would have loved this to be 10x longer, but it was still an enjoyable hour of reading.
December 6, 2025
absolutely perfect …everything i wanted it to be and ultimately still can’t believe these three names are on the same essay ..it was made for me
November 6, 2025
Swift is Plath is Swift. Fame, women and the patriarchy.
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November 30, 2025I really wish Lana Del Rey had been chosen as the subject rather than Taylor Swift
Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews