But I do know that this book has moved me profoundly, and that Bluets arrived at the right time for me, though merely to write these words seems to reveal too much of my heart already. I don’t believe that I am poet Maggie Nelson’s ideal reader–I’m not a poet, nor do I possess any facility with the language of poetic technique to adequately describe what Nelson is doing in her book on the level of craft. Perhaps I should stop myself now, and explain my point of entry.

Nelson works lyrically between the two poles of nonfiction prose and the rhythm of verse. and 136., the form of Nelson’s Bluets is not quite essay, not strictly poetry, either. What depression ever felt like a fire? I think, shoving the book back on the shelf.Īs in entries 18. ‘Drinking when you are depressed is like throwing kerosene on a fire,’ I read in another self-help book at the bookstore. Speaking of party-time, here’s another one of Maggie Nelson’s 240 prose-like Bluets entries, which I first encountered when a wise poet friend selected its bitter wisdom to hold up to the hungry eyes of Facebook:ġ36. Bluets came out in 2009 clearly, I’m late to the party. Twice in one week, I wore pants in a color that shimmered between sapphire and cobalt, and on one of those occasions, I spilled a little wine and later on discovered the butterfly-shaped bone of my hip tinged blue. (An archaic definition for the term “blue-eyed,” relayed by Maggie Nelson: 91…“a blueness or dark circle around the eye, from weeping or other cause.” ) “ Heartbreak is a spondee (42.),” I heard myself telling strangers. It was shaking.Īfter reading the book, I pushed it on everyone I knew who might be familiar with eros the bittersweet, with injury, with morbid-hearted love, with ekphrastic inclination, with lust, with loneliness, with bitter laughter, with red wine, with weeping. It was a smear of the quotidian, a bright blue flake amidst all the dank providence. Afterward, from the window of our room, I watched a blue tarp on a roof across the way flap in the wind. A warm afternoon in early spring, New York City.

Bluets maggie nelson barnes and noble