Elizabeth Alexander’s poems consistently read as prose broken into short lines. The poem “Blues” is no exception and despite the title, contains no music. This poem features three free verse paragraphs; it dramatizes the theme of guilt about personal behavior.
First Verse Paragraph: “I am lazy, the laziest”
The speaker begins with a confession that she is so lazy that she could qualify is as “laziest / girl in the world.” Lest the reader think she exaggerates, she confides that she sleeps all day if she feels so inclined, “'til / my face is creased and swollen, / 'til my lips are dry and hot.” Furthermore, she eats whatever strikes her fancy, healthy or not: “cookies and milk / after lunch, butter and sour cream, / / foods that / slothful people eat.”
As is fitting the laziest girl in the world, “Many days / I do not exercise.” She does “consider it,” but she “then rub[s] [her] curdy / belly and lie[s] down.” She then admits that even though she is a poet, “[her] poems are lazy.” She prefers “syllabics” to “iambs” and “slant” rime instead of “the gong” of perfect rime.
Plus she writes short poems instead of those that “go / for pages.” She then confesses that “yesterday, / I did not work at all!” She went shopping and spent her “father’s money.”
Second Verse Paragraph: “To think, in childhood I missed only“
The speaker then begins to look back at her childhood, in which she behaved very differently from her present slothful routine. As a schoolgirl, she “missed only / one day of school” each year. She took dance lessons. She “knew only industry / the industry of my race /and of immigrants.” She took to heart the advice “Work hard / and do not shame your family” and “There is no sin but sloth.”
Third Verse Paragraph: “I avoided sleep for years”
In the final verse paragraph, the speaker claims that she “avoided sleep for years” spending her nights “replaying / evening news stories.” She worried about jailbreaks; she stressed about “fat people” who died from overstuffing themselves with greasy foods.
Now, as she sleeps as much as she pleases, she is able to give herself the excuse that she is looking for absolution. She is searching for the V-shape of birds “flying in formation” that she can fashion into poems, and she is watching for “open arms” that spread toward her with the forgiveness she craves for all of her sins, real or imagined.
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