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supernova
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 11, 2025
JuN3 B4tes wRit3s ReAl P03try
November 12, 2025
“BYE
I loved my old label.
Fought for those colors
to the near-death,
and won.
Carried it like a trophy
for years and years.
But the sun is setting
over something new.”
——
“And oh, it’s never been this bad before.
And oh, it’s gonna kill me this time, isn’t it?
And oh, how could anyone not love this terrible place?”
——
I often find myself asking “When will June Bates come out with a new book?” to invariably be met with the same answer ever time: whenever a new Taylor Swift album comes out.
I love how political this book is. Queer liberation is a theme in all of her books, but Supernova takes it a step further. She speaks clearly and poetically about the American Dream and the destruction of America. Some poems are subtle, some not-so. On page 63, “HIDE? I DON’T THINK SO,” Bates speaks candidly, but paints a beautifully sharp image of queer culture and how it resists modern american society.
On page 90, “My father says / we live in the best country in the world,” Bates uses that phrase over and over to explain the atrocities that america has committed. Framing that poem using that repetition also calls to mind the patriarchy and how men use their privilege to control people, women and queer people specifically.
Her poems on love and heartbreak were wonderful. I particularly loved how she used a theatre stage as an ongoing metaphor for love — this was a reference to the showgirl motif of Taylor’s album, but it works well as independent of Taylor’s album.
Speaking of, there are a couple poems here that didn’t work for me, and they were all poems that directly referenced lyrics or song titles from The Life of a Showgirl. It was too obvious and too hokey. They were very clearly written for people to point at and say, “I get that reference!” Poems like page 26, 99 (“STRAPPED”), 107, and 108. They were a little too cringy for me, but they definitely did not distract me enough from enjoying the book as a whole.
Also, I find it interesting that the quality of each of her books matches the quality of the respective Taylor Swift album. The Lavender Haze was the book that made me fall in love with Bates (and instapoetry in general), and Midnights is one of my favorite albums. Love & Poetry was a meh book, and I found TTPD to be an extremely meh album. And Supernova was a very typical, but still interesting, collection of poetry; just as Showgirl was a very typical, but still very rich, album. I would say that Bates is very good at matching Taylor’s energy, but Supernova and Showgirl do not have the same energy at all. This is all subjective, of course, I just find it interesting.
I loved my old label.
Fought for those colors
to the near-death,
and won.
Carried it like a trophy
for years and years.
But the sun is setting
over something new.”
——
“And oh, it’s never been this bad before.
And oh, it’s gonna kill me this time, isn’t it?
And oh, how could anyone not love this terrible place?”
——
I often find myself asking “When will June Bates come out with a new book?” to invariably be met with the same answer ever time: whenever a new Taylor Swift album comes out.
I love how political this book is. Queer liberation is a theme in all of her books, but Supernova takes it a step further. She speaks clearly and poetically about the American Dream and the destruction of America. Some poems are subtle, some not-so. On page 63, “HIDE? I DON’T THINK SO,” Bates speaks candidly, but paints a beautifully sharp image of queer culture and how it resists modern american society.
On page 90, “My father says / we live in the best country in the world,” Bates uses that phrase over and over to explain the atrocities that america has committed. Framing that poem using that repetition also calls to mind the patriarchy and how men use their privilege to control people, women and queer people specifically.
Her poems on love and heartbreak were wonderful. I particularly loved how she used a theatre stage as an ongoing metaphor for love — this was a reference to the showgirl motif of Taylor’s album, but it works well as independent of Taylor’s album.
Speaking of, there are a couple poems here that didn’t work for me, and they were all poems that directly referenced lyrics or song titles from The Life of a Showgirl. It was too obvious and too hokey. They were very clearly written for people to point at and say, “I get that reference!” Poems like page 26, 99 (“STRAPPED”), 107, and 108. They were a little too cringy for me, but they definitely did not distract me enough from enjoying the book as a whole.
Also, I find it interesting that the quality of each of her books matches the quality of the respective Taylor Swift album. The Lavender Haze was the book that made me fall in love with Bates (and instapoetry in general), and Midnights is one of my favorite albums. Love & Poetry was a meh book, and I found TTPD to be an extremely meh album. And Supernova was a very typical, but still interesting, collection of poetry; just as Showgirl was a very typical, but still very rich, album. I would say that Bates is very good at matching Taylor’s energy, but Supernova and Showgirl do not have the same energy at all. This is all subjective, of course, I just find it interesting.
October 9, 2025
I don’t read a lot of poetry, and this collection was pretty mixed in terms of topics. Some I’ll come back to, some that felt like Instagram poems.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews