Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images and /TikTok
If your TikTok FYP (that’s “For Your Page” for the luddites out there) has even a slight taste of angsty Gen Z teen, then you’ve surely seen Aliza Grace’s poetry—or, at the very least, stumbled upon one of her many, many fans.
Born in West Virginia, the 19-year-old poet has over 600,000 followers on TikTok and has published 16(!) poetry books on Amazon. This also includes a journal and a coffee table book featuring Lana Del Rey lyrics and quotes, an ode to the queen of melancholy who inspired Grace and of course, creates easily digestible, sad girl fodder. In some ways, her poetry too attempts to be LDR-adjacent. Grace’s recent video with over 2 million views shares a poem that goes: “it makes me sick / how in love i was with you // the thing is i was never in love with you / i was in love with a version of you / a version i made up.”
Another popular post reads, “this is your sign / check his phone / go through his TikTok likes / Insta saved…” In case you haven’t cracked it yet, most of Grace’s poetry looks at themes of heartbreak, young love, and feeling disillusioned in a relationship. Her feed is a homogenous sea of black-and-white videos set to broody, internet friendly, heartache tunes like “Space Jet,” “Romantic Homicide,” or any other slow and reverb-heavy song. All her posts follow the same format: Each video shows one of her books placed on a pearly white crushed cloth, opened to a random page of poetry.