Pop star Taylor Swift is distantly related to the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson, as per a report in the Guardian. Ancestry, the company which helps people trace their genealogy, said "Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th-century English immigrant (Swift's ninth great-grandfather and Dickinson's sixth great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut)".
Both of them are "sixth cousins, three times removed" and "Taylor Swift's ancestors remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in northwestern Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line," they added.
The poet who lived from 1830 to 1886 is famed for her poems such as "Because I could not stop for Death" and "'Hope' is the thing with feathers." She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, and is regarded as one of the most important figures in poetry. She lived a recluse and wrote anonymously while she was still living in her family's house.
"As a young girl, she frequented social events, enjoyed school, and had many friends. As she grew older, she saw people less and less but remained open to visits from close friends and family. Whether she suffered from a medical condition that made her uncomfortable around people or whether she chose to separate herself from society is not known," her museum added.
Notably, Ms Swift has made reference to the poet in the past while discussing her songwriting in public. When she received the Nashville Songwriters Association International's Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award in 2022, she declared, "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."
Along with numerous lyrical allusions to Dickinson's writing, Swift's ninth studio album 'Evermore', has long been associated with the poet, as per her fans. They point out that the album's release date, December 10, 2020, coincides with the poet's birthday.
The news comes as the singer's next album, 'The Tortured Poets Department', is scheduled for release in April. Taylor Swift revealed at a performance in Australia recently that she has been composing her next album for the past two years, which has reminded her "why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life."
