once again embracing the blueness

~ jama

“Blue is the closest color to truth.” ~ Steven Tyler

Please help yourself to some blueberry cake.

Hello, Friends. Hope you had a good summer!

We’re celebrating Alphabet Soup’s 17th Blogiversary and happy to be back in this space to serve up our usual mischief and merrymaking. 🙂

“Kamala Harris” by Ashley Longshore (acrylic on canvas, 2020).

Are you feeling more hopeful, optimistic and energized about the upcoming election? While I’m mostly thinking about the color 💙 BLUE 💙 these days, Richard Jones’s captivating abecedarian list poem has me considering other colors of the visual spectrum in entirely new ways.

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“Cornflower Field” by Marina Urchukina (acrylic on canvas, 2018).
THE NOMENCLATURE OF COLOR
by Richard Jones

Absinthe green: Laura’s eyes.
Bishop’s purple: Evening skies.
Cornflower blue: Dreams of the wise.
Dragon’s-blood red: My mother’s sighs.
Elephant’s breath: Imagination.
Forget-me-not blue: The dust of cremation.
Guinea green: Ruination.
Hessian brown: The dust of creation.
Iron gray: The paradox of clouds.
Jade green: The bride’s necklace.
Kingfisher blue: Justice and grace.
Lavender gray: A widow’s shroud.
Medici blue: The heart that is jealous.
Nile blue: The color of water.
Onionskin pink: A poem for my daughter.
Pearl gray: The wedding gift.
Quaker drab: The virtue of thrift.
Raw sienna: The dirt that we sift.
Seafoam green: The rowboat adrift.
Tyrian rose: The color of love.
Ultramarine blue: Heaven above.
Venetian pink: Hell below.
Wedgewood blue: The little we know.
Xanthine orange: The taste of life.
Yvette violet: The lips of my wife.
Zinc orange, zinc blue, zinc white: The color of houses in paradise.

~ from Stranger on Earth (Copper Canyon Press, 2018).

“Blue Heaven” by Yvonne Wagner (oil on canvas).

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“Lotus, Kingfisher and Frog” by Shiu Hon Wong (watercolor on canvas). Note: “Kamala” is Sanskrit for ‘lotus’.

Love the idea of cataloging one’s life (and human experience in general) according to color names. The poetic form is simple, yet the inferences profound. The personal becomes universal. Single words become even more powerful. And the end rhymes are surprisingly effective.

Colors are emotional, symbolic, provocative, and emblematic in and of themselves, but when paired with Jones’s responses, they’re something else again. In my next life, I think it would be fun to be an official color namer; as we’ve seen here, names have a musicality all their own. 🙂

I was also reminded of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours by P. Syme (1814), a taxonomic guide to colors of the natural world. This handbook was an invaluable resource for naturalists and anthropologists, including Charles Darwin, who used it to identify colors in nature during his seminal voyage on the HMS Beagle.  

“Blues” from Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours by P. Syme (1814).

I love that Scotch Blue = The Throat of the Blue Titmouse, Stamina of Single Purple Anemone, and Blue Copper Ore. Azure Blue = The Breast of the Emerald-crested Manakin, Grape Hyacinth. Gentian, and Blue Copper Ore. So beautifully specific, a treasure for both scientists as well as artists!

So, if colors can be described via their equivalents in nature, they can also be described in human terms, real and abstract, as Jones has so elegantly done in his poem.

“Kamala Harris: Change Gonna Come” by Joan Baez (click image to purchase a signed and numbered Limited Edition print. Net proceeds donated to Harris/Walz campaign).

With my intense focus on BLUE, I couldn’t help but notice how three of the blues in the poem apply to Kamala. After all, blue, the color of ocean and sky, does symbolize freedom, stability, inspiration, serenity, imagination and divinity.

Cornflower blue: Dreams of the wise.
Kingfisher blue: Justice and grace.
Ultramarine blue: Heaven above.

Would we not benefit from a President with wisdom, spiritual grace and a sense of justice, who would inspire us all to dream big?

I’ll continue to channel 💙 BLUE 💙 in future posts for good luck and to remind us to stay true to our beliefs. It worked in 2020, and it will work again in 2024.

I leave you with words about life on our fragile blue planet, ever in our care:

“Blue is bunting, indigo and quick. Blue is jay, its chatter like jazz. Blue is grosbeak is bluebird is blackbird turned sky. The Chisos mountains at dusk are blue. Blue is ghost-like. Twilight. Deep border blue. Once is the blue moon where panthers dance. Twice is the blue belly of lizards flashing. Blue waves are heat waves, dervishes in sand. Blue is the long song of storm clouds gathering with rain.” ~ Terry Tempest Williams (The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks, 2017).

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Lovely and talented Buffy Silverman is hosting the Roundup this week. She’s giving us a little sneak peek of her latest book, Starlight Symphony, coming out Tuesday, September 10. Be sure to also check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere. Happy Weekend!

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**Housekeeping Note: I’ve added three new pages to the Top Menu of the blog: Book Reviews, Favorites, and Poetry. They include access to all the Archival List links that were previously in the blog’s sidebar. So, if you want to peruse all the book reviews and Poetry Friday posts published since 2008, check them out! The Favorites page features classic children’s book authors as well as the posts I most enjoyed creating. 🙂

Meanwhile . . .

Kamala leads crucial strategy meeting.
She also captivated the crowd at a recent Virginia rally.

VOTE BLUE!

*Copyright © 2024 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.

41 thoughts on “once again embracing the blueness”

  1. Glad you are back! Summer was too long for me, so hot and humid! Speaking of colors, I am thinking of all the lovely rusts and oranges and browns that Autumn brings. It’s cooler, so I am a happy camper! 🍁🍂🍎🍎🍏🍏

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    1. I’m looking forward to all the autumn colors too. It’s already starting to feel like fall here — chilly in the mornings. Happy to say goodbye to heat and humidity!

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  2. Between the blue hope surging in the news (and my heart) and the way you and Michelle K. are actively embracing BLUE in your posts, I’m feeling as confident as a Colorado sky!

    That poem was a great find, and I am in love with the 1814 Animal/Vegetable/Mineral guide to blue.

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  4. 💙 all your blue here, the ending line in the poem, ”the color of houses in paradise,” Kamala and Lotus connections, paintings, and your spirit. Happy to have you return!!! Unfortunately my visits/posts this fall may be fewer as I just started teaching at Wright College, one of Chicago’s city colleges and I am filled to the brim with prepping for lectures, tests and grading… Thanks for your terrific post Jama! 😊🐝🦋

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  5. Oh, my, Jama, what a blue wave you have brought us! Happy Blogiversary to you, ready to celebrate all the blue we and those in the past can bring! I love the poem and the Werner nomenclature, both new to me and full of our world’s good things. Welcome back! Indeed, VOTE BLUE! On a side note, I am so grateful to Nikki Grimes for the book about Kamala Harris. She was prescient, wasn’t she? Thanks for every bit!

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    1. Thanks for the good wishes, Linda. Nikki’s book is a gem; I remember really enjoying it when I reviewed it years ago. Even then, I wondered in the back of my mind whether she would be our next President after Biden. 🙂

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  7. You’ve captured the blue dreams of so many of us–from your fingers to the voting booth! Love how the abcedarian poem encompasses so much of life through colors. And Terry Tempest William’s blues are wonderful. Why the future of our fragile blue planet is not the top issue of this election is beyond me….

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  8. Ahhhhh – a long drink of BLUE water it is over here, Jama & Co., after your summer hiatus! Welcome back, and thank you, thank you, for filling our poetry and art cups this morning. (“Wedgewood blue: The little we know.” – love that.) We all wish we could have attended that prestigious Virginia rally in person; thanks for the media coverage so we can vicariously enjoy. xo

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    1. Mr C missed you at the rally. It was magical!! We’re happy to provide continued “media coverage” leading up to the election. 😀

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  9. How I have missed you these last two months, Jama! You already have me drooling over that blueberry cake. I love the clever rhyme scheme in Richard Jones’s poem that you shared – very unusual for an abecedarian poem. I have to say, I think you would be an excellent “Official Color Namer!” I always enjoy reading the tops of nail polish bottles just to see …

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    1. Jones’s use of rhyme was surprising and delightful. Now that you mention it, there are so many colors of the products we buy without realizing it. Eye shadow and nail polish, not to mention house paint. Lucky people who got to name them. 🙂

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  10. Love all the blue here, with the exception of blueberry cake. Surprising, because I have fresh blueberries almost every day for breakfast. Just don’t like them crushed or cooked. My wedding dress was Ultramarine Blue and white. Thinking blue for November. Did you see Stevie’s performance of Higher Ground at the DNC?

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    1. Stevie was awesome at the DNC. I also have blueberries every morning for breakfast — but unlike you, I love them cooked, crushed, and baked in pies and cakes!

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  12. I’ve copied the Nomenclature of Color to present to my students. What a beautiful poem! I love the blues you picked out for Kamala. She makes me feel hope again as does this post. Glad you have returned to celebrate your blogiversary with us.

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  13. Hooray! I’m feeling a swell of blue too…and so hopeful. I’m throwing blue confetti for this post, your return from summer and all the ways that I see blue rising.

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  14. I am smiling smiling smiling through your post, Jama! Where do you find the dolls??? I will channel your BLUE into September and October and ride this wave of blue thunder rolling into our November votes!

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  16. Charming post, Jama! So much to love here, from Jones’ poem to the gorgeous paintings and Werner’s Nomenclature. Thanks for all the blue!

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  17. O Jama, so nice to have you back! When I saw the title of this post, I thought “Why blue?” I was thinking sunnier fall colors….then I saw the photo, and – O!! Can we really feel hope? I get so choked up when I see things like this, it is all so stressful! So thank you for such fun, happy, hopeful thoughts – my day just got so much better!

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    1. Yes, I know how you feel, Donna. We want to hope, we need to hope, but part of us is afraid of huge disappointment and heartbreak. Things have been so stressful for such a long time, that feeling hopeful has become a novelty — we’re cautious and gun-shy, thinking to ourselves, do we dare?

      Yes, we do!! Let’s keep fighting for what is right!

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  19. I love everything about this post! I *do* feel hope for a blue wave. I worry about the insidious electoral college system (ugh!) but for today, I will revel in hope and this gorgeous post. I think my daughter (the artist) would love Werner’s Nomenclature. I loved that poem, too. So rich!

    So lovely to have you back, Jama!

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    1. I hear you — the electoral college thing is a huge concern, as well as foreign interference/disinformation, and the election deniers counting ballots. It seems wrong that a few swing states could determine the outcome, regardless of the overall popular vote.

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