Bluets [Paperback]

Maggie Nelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2009

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

A lyrical, philosophical, and often explicit exploration of personal suffering and the limitations of vision and love, as refracted through the color blue. With Bluets, Maggie Nelson has entered the pantheon of brilliant lyric essayists.

Maggie Nelson is the author of numerous books of poetry and nonfiction, including Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa Press, 2007). She lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Maggie Nelson is the author of several books of poetry and nonfiction, including Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa Press, 2007). She has taught writing and literature at The New School, Wesleyan University, and Pratt Institute of Art, though currently teaches at CalArts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Wave Books; First Edition edition (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933517409
• ISBN-13: 978-1933517407
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,392 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #22 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Women Writers

More About the Author

Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, scholar, and creative nonfiction writer. Her most recent book is a landmark work of cultural, art, and literary criticism titled The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Norton, 2011), which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and came out in paperback in August 2012. She is also the author of three other books of nonfiction prose: a meditation on the color blue titled Bluets (Wave Books, 2009), a memoir about her family, media spectacle, and sexual violence titled The Red Parts (Free Press, 2007), and a critical study of painting and poetry titled Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa, 2007; winner, the Susanne M. Glassock Award for Interdisciplinary Scholarship). She has also published four books of poetry, including Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and Jane: A Murder (Soft Skull, 2005; finalist, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir). She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction, an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and an Andy Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant. She currently teaches in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts and lives in Los Angeles.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Bluets October 3, 2010

By WT Jamison

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Nelson's book is rife with deep honesty, sensible confession, dark(-ish) humor, and enough sadness to tear viscera asunder. Nelson confesses she wanted to compose a book that would be a complete, comprehensive encyclopedic index of blue. What the reader gets is a book about compassion, mourning, hope, happiness, sex, and, as one might expect, one blue coat. What the reader gets is Bluets - nothing like any other book out there. Beautifully written, compelling, believable, deeply felt.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading September 17, 2011

By Zach Powers

Format:Paperback

This is a brilliant little book that does its best to defy classification. Part of it is memoir, looking back on an ended relationship while living in the emotional aftermath of it. What's interesting is how this is explored in tandem with a philosophical investigation of the color blue, and it is this exploration that dominates the 240 numbered section of the book. More specifically, it is about Maggie Nelson's love of the color, and how that love informs her understanding of other forms of love. I'm realizing as I write this that the book may be beyond my explanation. I think I'll let it speak for itself in a few select quotes, ending my own thoughts here by saying that you should read Bluets, probably twice.

"It is, perhaps, my way of making my life feel "in progress" rather than a sleeve of ash falling off a lit cigarette."

"And it must also be admitted that hitting the wall or wandering off in the wrong direction or tearing off the blindfold is as much a part of the game as is pinning the tail on the donkey."

"And if 'saturation' means that one simply could not absorb or contain one single drop more, why does 'saturation' not bring with it a connotation of satisfaction, either in concept, or in experience?"

"But a bouquet is no homage to the bush."

"Imagine someone saying, "our fundamental situation is joyful." Now imagine believing it."

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Unremitting genius! September 1, 2009

By Jessica Hopper

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was excited about this book since reading an excerpt in The Hat. I read that poem 2x and went online and ordered it, knowing only it would come in the fall, and it did. I read the entire thing today sometimes skipping excitedly along at a pace maybe a bit too swift to really be taking it all in, but i was excited and it made me hungry for the next pages wit and frankness and it's the sort of work that just makes you hungry for more. You want to know all of it right now. I laid the book down for a minute to finish tending to what I had in the oven and my boyf. picked it up and started reading different parts aloud, loving it, laughing, we discussed the "depression is not like a fire" bit. I am so tremendously stoked this book exists, that it scratches the poetry itch I have for something lyrical and smart and feminist and libidinous and real and very alive. It is revivifying and truly great work. Perfect present for the cool woman in your life. Or the uncool woman in your life. Both. Either. All.