MAGGIE’S PICK

Whether or not you are already well-versed in the lyrical essay genre, Nelsons 2009 book Bluets is a bookshelf staple. Her poetic sketch of an obsessive love and its subsequent destruction draws the reader in, seducing them through prose. Both personal and erudite, Bluets cements Maggie Nelson as one of the most important contemporary poets and thinkers working today. -MR

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.

Paperback | 112 pages | 6.34″ x 8.33″