Florida Poet Doubles Down in Previous Lawsuit Against Taylor Swift Over ‘Substantially Similar’ Lyrics

A Florida woman is refusing to give up on her claim that Taylor Swift copied her poems for some of her hit songs.

Kimberly Marasco filed a second amended complaint on Tuesday, October 14, alleging that 11 of the pop star’s songs, as well as the introductory text to The Tortured Poets Department, are “substantially similar” to her own “personal memoirs, poetry and other art” that were published and distributed between 2017 and 2019, according to documents obtained by Star.

Marasco, who is representing herself, is also suing Swift’s label, producer Jack Antonoff, cowriter Aaron Dessner and Universal Music Group. She seeks the profits from the songs.

Some examples the poet points to include the use of a “rigged-race metaphor” in “The Man,” “asylum-like imagery” and “rare historical reference to Nellie Bly” in Swift’s “Fortnight” song and video, the comparison of love with the sky in “Illicit Affairs.”

The sky imagery, Marasco claims, is “deeply personal, rooted in her experiences as a flight attendant.”

Marasco also alleges that her lines — “The devil entity Devoured in the Fire/Doves dancing and singing high in the sky, and I can hear the beautiful choir” — were copied in “My Tears Ricochet,” in which Swift sings, “And I still talk to you/when I’m screaming at the sky.”

Her first complaint against Swift, 35, which was filed last year, was dismissed on Monday, September 29, per Billboard.

Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Marasco had “fallen woefully short” of proving the songs were similar, adding, “Plaintiff’s poems amount at most to ideas, metaphors, contexts, and themes — none of which is a proper subject of copyright protection.”

Swift’s attorneys have called the copyright infringement claims “utterly frivolous.”