Bluets

By: Maggie Nelson

Narrated by: Maggie Nelson

Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color....

Since 2009, when it first published, to today, Bluets has drawn scores of readers and listeners with its surprising insights into the emotional depths that make us most human - via 240 short pieces, at once lyrical and philosophical, on the color blue. This new edition celebrates Maggie Nelson’s uncompromising vision, inviting longtime fans and newcomers alike to experience and share in an indispensable work that continues to disrupt the literary landscape.

©2009 Maggie Nelson (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing

Gloved Grief - A Response from a stranger.

You circle your grief,
pack it tightly in the bundle.
Gloved hands—transparent, sterile.
You look through the glass
instead of directly,
always with a filter,
always with a filler.

You tie your bundle of burning—
burning—
and cannot bear to trace its outline.
The chalk of the body print
lies on your floor,
and you look out a window,
away,
anywhere but where you are.

It is hoisted high above you,
on the vaulted ceiling
you selected
for this exact intention.

Your hands are cold
even from your own warmth.
You watch yourself
from a bird’s-eye view,
and scour your home
for the items you have
willingly hidden.

The desire to own it,
to taste your own emotion,
to feel the break—
is shrouded
by your reluctance
to look at yourself
with intentionality.

You circle your obsession
with poems,
with philosophers,
with any tangible form
that lets you hold yourself
without touching your own hand.

You bleed the meaning from intimacy.
You deny the sacred’s presence within you
by coating desire in apathy,
claiming lust
as the only hunger that matters.
A refusal to remember
the memory.

But I see it.

I see the pool of history and blood
stagnant underneath you.
You bleed,
even if you refuse to look at your wound.

I see the grief
you run from—
and chase.

You are as present
as you are willing to be.
For yourself.
For others.

You deny yourself
the waves of your own filling,
and float
on the blue water instead.
Surrounded.
Aware.
Neither sinking,
nor absorbing.

You ask how to move on,
how to change,
how to grow.

You must meet yourself
in every version of your truth,
and accept her there.
Only then
will you be able
to move.

You catalog your deflection
like a scientist,
only interested
in the side effects—
never the cause.

Between Emotion and Articulation

Nelson’s meditations on blue pull the reader inward, not to answer questions, but to let them hum. This book lives in the pause between emotion and articulation, where thinking and feeling are indistinguishable. It rewards the precise mind that also knows how to sit beside pain without trying to fix it. There’s no arc, no resolution, only a steady willingness to stay with what resists being named.

Mesmerizing

Listening to this work was a mesmerizing experience. As she shifted from artistic and literary references to her own sense memories to her personal interactions with friends and lovers, the reader is carried along on a sea of constantly transforming Blues. Wonderful! Four Stars.

Relatable and real

I loved this poetry/story……very relatable and my favorite color is blue, any shade.

Blues

a lovely book poorly produced. we all have gifts writing is definitely this author's gift, reading it out loud not so much. I would highly recommend you purchase the book, even after buying the audiobook.