The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Nelson, Maggie. Bluets. Seattle, Wave Books, 2009.

Bluets uses a nonlinear structure to explore the emotional and philosophical ramifications of grief. Over the course of the poem, the reader must piece together the events that have triggered Nelson to write the book. The most important is a painful breakup with the man to whom much of the book is addressed, in which he left the speaker for another woman. Over the years he continues to reach out and send the speaker blue gifts, but he refuses to acknowledge her pain or need for closure, for example by carrying one of her letters unopened.

Another major event is a car accident that leaves one of the speaker’s close friends a quadriparalytic. Over the year following the accident, the speaker helps to care for her friend and learns from her friend’s pain and innate wisdom how better to confront her own mental pain.

Over the three years of the poem’s writing, the speaker struggles to overcome her long-term depression through the central image of the color blue. She draws on influences from all areas of her life and interests, including conversations with friends, memories, science, encyclopedias, dictionaries, religious texts, philosophy, literature, music, history, politics, and the visual arts. Frequent quotations from writers, thinkers, and musicians provide new perspectives and lenses for the speaker’s reflections. Influences include Goethe, Wittgenstein, Thoreau, Emerson, Stein, Billie Holiday, Sir Isaac Newton, and many others.