Poem: Wild and Blue – The New York Times

In “savaje y azul”, the country musician and poet Julián Talamantez Brolaski has written the lament of a 21st century troubadour. The poem begins with light and wind, fixed elements of poetry. There is the lyrical sweetness of herons and mountains. Even Chaucer’s zephyr appears. At its midpoint, however, the poem takes a turn. The sorry state of the poet is revealed. The wind won’t blow, or at least not yet. The poem stops flying: instead, it is anchored in the dusty corner. The diction also moves from the poetic to the everyday, almost anti-poetic idioms of “crying up to your eyes” and “it’s not a picnic.” Sadness has done this, it has extracted the wild both from the poet and from the poet’s vocabulary. Then the twist in the light returns. (This poem was originally commissioned by United States Artists and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and recently appeared in a slightly different form in Shift Space.) Selected by Anne Boyer

wild and blue

By Julian Talamantez Brolaski

if there was a twist in the light
or if the note bent a bit
we’d know we’re on the brink
of its expressive spectrum
The west wind had it from a good source
it comes from something more like the south.
it was because the mountains cascaded down
the sea and not parallel to it. it was for the
great herons and the evening winds. the sweet breath of
the zephyr, says chaucer, is breathed into us.
Christ, when will it blow?
I’m in the corner with the dust and the dust bunnies,
crying my eyes It’s not a picnic, well it’s kind of a picnic,
and there is sand coming out of the holes in the
picnic basket…
I’m wild except when I’m blue
and then I’m conventional,
lurking silhouettes in the curtain, and imagining
worst. as to the twist of light in there, and the feeling
that bluish the note, well, we only know
due to its availability to bending

anna boyer He is a poet and essayist. His memoir about cancer and care, ”The Undying,” won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Julian Talamantez Brolaski (it/xe/them) is a poet, country singer and author of ”Of Mongrelitude” (Wave Books, 2017), ”Advice for Lovers” (City Lights, 2012) and ”gowanus atropolis’ ‘ ( Ugly Duckling Press, 2011). Brolaski is a 2023 Bagley Wright Professor, a 2021 Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellow in Residence, and a 2020 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry recipient. With his band Juan & the Pines, he released an EP, ”Glittering Forest” ‘, in 2019; Brolaski’s first full-length album, “It’s Okay Honey,” will be released on August 4.