August 31: Blue Writing, Maggie Nelson, ""Famously Blue Places"

64.  It was around this time that I was planning to travel to many famously blue places:  ancient indigo and woad production sites, the Chartres Cathedral, the Isle of Skye, the lapis mines of Afghanistan, the Scrovegni Chapel, Morocco, Crete.  I made a map, I used colored pins, etc.  But I have no money.  So I applied for grant after grant, describing how exciting, how original, how necessary my exploration of blue would be.  In one application, written and sent late at night to a conservative Ivy League university, I described myself and my project as heathen, hedonistic, and horny.  I never got any funding.  My blues stayed local.
                        ---from Bluets by Maggie Nelson

You may wonder how I choose poems for this blog.  Sometimes, it's intentional.  I look for a poem that touches upon a a particular subject.  Other times, I look through a lot of poems until one sticks with me, for whatever reason.

Tonight, the above passage from Maggie Nelson stuck with me.  It may be the list of blue places.  It may be Nelson's description of her fruitless quest for funding.  It may be Chartres Cathedral or the lapis mines of Afghanistan.

I don't know why I love this little piece of poetry.  For whatever reason, it fills a hole in my heart or mind this evening.  It comforts me.

Saint Marty is thankful for blue writing this evening.