with Deborah Walker and Dewale Ola Dimeji
Trigger Warning: Sexual Content and Mental Health
Have you ever fallen in love with a colour? Join me and writers Deborah Walker and Dewale Ola Dimeji as we talk obsession, heartbreak and form in Bluets, a genre-defining lyric essay by Maggie Nelson. It consists of a series of 240 numbered fragments, ranging from as short as a single sentence to a whole page, and it touches on themes of desire, depression, heartache and God. Its main interest is in searching for the cultural, artistic and synaesthetic qualities of the color blue, but it does so through lucid and elegant reflections on sex and love. Its prose-poetry form has made it an iconic text which has shaped the modern lyric essay genre, and it was first published in the UK in 2017 by Jonathan Cape.
Bluets by Dewale Ola Dimeji
Never the headliners but always relate as the definers,
Of what becomes of the broken hearted
Four man do- wop, depicting through tight harmonies the pain, harm and agonies of love lost
And its cost.
Loves found and lost revealing the best untold stories captured on an album compilation
Preferably vinyl, let the needle drop, classic do-wop as good as it gets
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Bluets
The Bluets ladies and gentlemen please. . .
Straight to it, Tenor leads, he pleads synchronized with his accompanying
baritone, alto and falsetto singers
Bringers, of empathy, joy and sadness.
Anyone who had a heart would call a carpenter to behold this acapella carving,
crafting that Bacharach may well have written or not. . .
With lyrical dexterity comparable to complex origami
Unfolding stories by the dozens, rued signals missed, the passionate kiss, ahh the bliss the regrets. . .
Behold. I give you the Bluets.
Big on empathy, critically, diffusing the emotional condensation
Examination with a lyric and a hook.
Moving through eight, 3 minute tracks back to back.
To leave you feeling. . . For better, or worse each verse prompts a self-examination
Extended play written by personal anecdotes that you wrote or wish you had
As you reference the chronicles of personal timelines
Wishing that once upon a next time, you’ll rewrite a line
That helps you redefine, rued, regrets and mistakes that you made. . .
Let the ad-libs be played, to fade to the lighter or darker shades of the Bluets.
Radical Writing Podcast 