Poetry Shelf favourite poems: Kay McKenzie Cooke’s ‘Blue Person’

Posted: Thursday Jun 01, 2023

Favourite Poems is an ongoing series where a poet chooses a favourite poem from their own backlist and writes a short note to go with it.

Blue Person

Hoping for eventual clouds
of hazy purple,
I planted two lavender today.
Small and tough enough to hunker down.
And tonight I left the bedroom windows open
in order to smell the rain,
the soaked earth, and pictured
the two lavender plants drinking.
I also bought a pansy
and a polyanthus because they were blue.
Some people say that they’re green people,
or red or, like my granddaughter says,
a yellow-orange person (amber, I tell her,
but she keeps forgetting).
Me, I’m a blue person. Blue that is almost purple,
or blue that is almost green
(I can’t decide). Then there’s sky-blue.
Clear, unattainable blue-blue.
The blue of agapanthus.
The blue of Delftware.
Sea-blue.
Bowerbird-blue.
Peacock-tail blue. I bought
two lavender plants
and a pansy and a polyanthus,
flowers that will weather the winter
triumphant in the frost, victorious
in snow. But what about too-blue?
‘How can you trust someone
who wears so much blue?’ a friend said once
about her boss. And of course we must always
leave room for yellow. Van Gogh thought so.
‘I’m not a yellow person,’ I heard someone say
and thought it a pity. A world without yellow

Kay McKenzie Cooke
from Upturned, The Cuba Press, Wellington, 2020

Note

I chose the poem, ‘Blue person’ because I will always appreciate the way it came to me almost fully formed, bearing the characteristic of a personal, chatty tone and light feet. It came bearing gifts - an assortment of ideas and characters - laying these down at my fingertips (so to speak). It had voice, humour and utilised remembered conversations to reflect something true. It set out to draw attention to the reality of life’s charms. It wove a story without losing its rhythm or focus and without labouring the point. Although it is a seemingly simple poem, it still has merit; it carries its own weight. And even as it dances along, it is at the same time anchored to things and subjects meaningful to me: life, home, art, growth, weathering, peace, colour, family, place, nature, people, appreciation and humour.

Kay McKenzie Cooke (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe) lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her fourth poetry book, titled Upturned, was published by The Cuba Press in June 2020. She is presently working on her fifth collection of poetry, so far untitled, as well as on her third novel set in Murihiku Southland.

Poetry Shelf favourite poems: Kay McKenzie Cooke’s ‘Blue Person’ | NZ Poetry Shelf