Sufjan Stevens is a man of mystery, and little bits of his lore seem to surface in the most unpredictable ways. In 2016, for instance, the Dallas musician Marc Rebillet posted about finding an unreleased 1998 album called Stalker in Stevens' dumpster. (We interviewed Rebillet, naturally.) Now, a Penn State undergrad has posted on TikTok about the apparent discovery of a Stevens poetry chapbook called Piss Poems.
On Thursday, the Penn State student with the TikTok handle greenwitchwh0re posted the cover of what appears to be Sufjan Stevens' Piss Poems, telling the story in a series of slides:
my professor casually dropped that he went to school with sufjan stevens today, and showed us his chapbook of poems. he told us, 'every time he had to pee, he would joy [sic] down a quick poem' and would take pictures of places he peed. my professor has no idea how big of a flex this is.
In the caption, she writes, "he should’ve started the semester out by saying he knows him." (She also clarifies that "the last slide is just a print of a poem we made today for class ? unrelated to sufjan steven’s.")
It's unclear who this student's professor is. But Stevens studied creative writing at the New School in New York in the late '90s, so this could certainly be from then.
Anyway, Sufjan Stevens is not merely the author of urine poetry from a quarter-century ago. He also makes music! Last week, regular Stevens collaborator Mina Tindle announced an expanded edition of her 2025 album Compass Rosa and shared a hushed, intricate new song called "Ladies." Stevens played on the song (as did Bryce Dessner, Ben Lanz, and Hanna Mietz) and he sings on the forthcoming "My Light."
Earlier this year, Stevens appeared on new Asthmatic Kitty artist Meg Lui's debut single "Gone Girl." Today, Stevens once again joins Lui on her brand new cover of the Cranberries' 1992 classic "Dreams." Stevens also serves as producer. Check it out.
