Are Song Lyrics Poetry?
In 2016 a shock went through the global literary community when folk music icon Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Citing him “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” the Nobel committee essentially seemed to be calling the singer-songwriter a poet.
You can hide ’neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
—from “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen
He’s not the first musician to be called such. Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Chuck Berry, Joni Mitchell, Cole Porter, Nick Cave, and Laura Nyro have all been declared poets by fans and critics alike because of their songwriting abilities. Country music legend Hank Williams was even dubbed “the Hillbilly Shakespeare,” and 21st-century pop phenomenon Taylor Swift declared herself a poet in 2024 with her album The Tortured Poets Department. In 2018 rapper Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. won the Pulitzer Prize for music—the first time in the prize’s history that it wasn’t given to a classical or jazz recording. A few of his fans thought the talented hip-hop lyricist should have received a literary Pulitzer.
Poetry purists and lovers of “serious literature” might frown upon calling rock stars and rappers poets. There are many debates over whether song lyrics are the same thing as poetry, just set to music, or if songwriting is another type of artistry altogether.
The conclusion is subjective, but history bears witness to the close relationship between poetry and song. Poetry began as an oral art form, words that were meant to be spoken and heard, even sung. Many of the great poets of the past, such as Rūmī, the medieval European troubadours, Thomas Moore, and Rabindranath Tagore were composers, singers, or songwriters as well as poets.
The troubadour tradition never went away—just ask the griots, revered West African oral historians who multitask as all-important storytellers, musicians, and poets.
Plenty of modern poets have incorporated music themes into their verses—Federico García Lorca, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, and Kevin Young, to name a few. Some poets of the 20th and 21st centuries even released albums, whether solo or in collaboration with famous musicians. What this means is that you can dance to the words of Joy Harjo, Jayne Cortez, Paul Muldoon, Shel Silverstein, and Yusef Komunyakaa.
But can you read the poetry of rockers, folkies, and pop stars? You can in the cases of Jim Morrison, Patti Smith, Lana Del Rey, Lou Reed, and Leonard Cohen, all of whom are published poets.
Take me to the Lakes, where all the poets went to die / I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you
—from “the lakes” by Taylor Swift
Let’s not forget performance poetry, an art form that encompasses text-based performance art (think Laurie Anderson), Beat poetry (à la Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg), slam poetry (pioneered by Marc Kelly Smith, Saul Williams, and Patricia Smith), and hip-hop (which brings us back to Lamar).
The debate over whether songs are poems (or whether poems are songs) may never end. But no one can deny that poetry and music are art forms of universal power and beauty.