The Slicks
  • Published: 13 November 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529979398
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 80
Categories:

The Slicks

On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift

  • Maggie Nelson
Formats & editions
Paperback
18 Nov 2025
EBook
13 Nov 2025
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An unexpected celebration of two of the most famous female poets of all time – Taylor Swift and Sylvia Plath – and an inspired treatise on female ambition by the adored cult author of Bluets and The Argonauts

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, trivialise and demonise such prolific, intimate output.

The Slicks is a heady, rallying and unexpected melding of popular culture and literary criticism – an inspired treatise and unexpected celebration of two iconic female poets by one of the most revered and influential critics of her generation.
  • Published: 13 November 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529979398
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 80
Categories:

Praise for The Slicks

Among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation

Olivia Laing

One of the most unique voices in non-fiction: enquiring, political, lyrically dazzling, empathetic

Sinéad Gleeson

Always brilliant

Geoff Dyer

Her words come as though from a great distance and strike incredibly close

Anne Enright

Maggie Nelson shows us what it means to be real, offering a way of thinking that is as challenging as it is liberating

Eula Biss

Maggie Nelson who writes with such passion, clarity, explicitness, fluidity, playfulness and generosity that she redefines what thinking can do today

Wayne Koestenbaum
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