What Is Poetcore? A Songwriter's Guide to the Aesthetic

Poetcore - a name applied to a set of tastes that have been accumulating for years in certain kinds of readers and writers: the preference for slowness, handwriting, literary reference, and rooms with substance.

What is new is the scale. Pinterest recorded a 75 per cent rise in poetcore-related searches in 2025, according to Grazia Daily. That is something wider happening, and if you write songs with a notebook and a cable-knit and a deep suspicion of shrink-wrapped anything, it is happening around you.

So what actually is it?

Poetcore is the aesthetic of the writer-as-figure: the person with ink on their fingers, a poetry collection face-down on the desk. Sydney Stanback, Pinterest's global head of trends and insights, describes it as a blend of "classical references, study rituals and a contemplative, creative lifestyle."

Its closest relatives are dark academia and cottagecore. Dark academia leans gothic and institutional. Cottagecore leans pastoral and domestic.

The wardrobe: what to wear

The palette does most of the work: parchment, oxblood, forest green, dusty navy, antique ivory. Pull anything in those colours from the back of your wardrobe and you're most of the way there.

The pieces are oversized blazers, cable knits, lace collars, pleated skirts, worn leather satchels, loafers, trench coats. Nothing structured or synthetic. Everything looks better with a crease in it.

At SS26, Prada, Miu Miu, Celine, and Alessandro Michele at Valentino were all pulling from the same source: Pier Paolo Pasolini, per Grazia Daily. Intellectual, literary, underdressed for the occasion.

Grace Wales Bonner's work gives you the clearest single reference point. Her collections cite poets directly, including Nikki Giovanni, and the clothes look like they belong in a reading room.

If you already own a good blazer and a cable knit, you own the wardrobe. The satchel is the only thing worth buying, and secondhand is better.

Books, food, and the rest of the house

Books in a poetcore home are not on shelves in alphabetical order. They're on the floor beside the desk, stacked on the windowsill, poetry sitting on top of fiction. Mary Oliver has become the default here, partly through PoetryTok, where Grazia Daily notes she's among the most-shared voices.

Food is slow. Sourdough, loose-leaf tea, a ceramic mug you've had long enough to forget where it came from. Nothing in plastic packaging.

The room itself runs on parchment, charcoal, and soft green. A reading corner with layered textiles, a lamp with a warm bulb rather than overhead light. Aged ceramics on the desk. A typewriter or fountain pen left out in view, not stored.

Applying the poetcore aesthetic for songwriters at home is less about buying things and more about keeping the writing surface clear of anything that doesn't belong to the work. One candle, one notebook, one pen.

Where it shows up in your songs

The poetcore aesthetic for songwriters changes what you reach for when you write.

The first practical shift is paper. A handwritten draft slows you down in a way that phone notes don't, and slower usually means more deliberate word choices. Joni Mitchell kept journals as source material; the lines she pulled from them read like found poetry because they were.

Write toward the image. Let the feeling come from what the image does.

Eight examples to look at now

Fashion, runway: Alessandro Michele's Valentino AW24 collection. Pasolini references, oxblood and parchment, a coat you'd wear to annotate something.

Fashion, accessible: A charity shop blazer in any shade of dusty navy, worn over a ribbed polo. Under £12 in most cities.

Books, poetry: Mary Oliver's Devotions. Read one poem before you open a new draft.

Books, fiction: Possession by A.S. Byatt.

Home, images: The Dickinson interiors from Hailee Steinfeld's Apple TV+ series. Candlelight, aged wood, a writing desk that looks used.

Home, object: A secondhand ceramic lamp base with a warm bulb. Oxfam and eBay both carry them regularly for under £20.

Film: Bright Star (2009). Jane Campion holds on rooms, paper, hands. The poetcore aesthetic is present in every shot.

Album: Phoebe Bridgers' Punisher. Quiet, literary, a record that makes you want to write.

One thing to try this week

Pick up a fountain pen. New ones start under £15; secondhand, you'll pay less. Write one lyric draft by hand, from scratch.

If you don't want to go near a pen right now, pull a poetry collection off the shelf instead and read it before you open a project file. Mary Oliver works.

Put the notebook somewhere you'll see it in the morning. Not in a drawer. On the desk, next to the 'aesthetic' mug.