Speaking on the release, she wrote: “The Tortured Poets Department. An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.”
The 16-track The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s eleventh studio album and features Florence & The Machine and Post Malone. Two hours after the release of TTPD, Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, which includes 15 additional songs.