Arrangements in Blue

When British poet Amy Key was growing up, she envisioned a life shaped by love—and Joni Mitchell’s album Blue was her inspiration. “Blue became part of my language of intimacy,” she writes, recalling the dozens of times she played the record as a teen, “an intimacy of disclosure, vulnerability, unadorned feeling that I thought I’d eventually share with a romantic other.” As the years ticked by, she held on to this very specific idea of romance like a bottle of wine saved for a special occasion.

But what happens when the romance we are all told will give life meaning never presents itself??Now single in her forties, Key explores the sweeping scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them, using… Keep Reading