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Bluest Nude: Poems
Finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Ama Codjoe’s highly anticipated debut collection brings generous light to the inner dialogues of women as they bathe, create art, make and lose love. Each poem rises with the urgency of a fully awakened sensual life . Codjoe’s poems explore how the archetype of the artist complicates the typical expectations of be gazed upon , be silent , be selfless , reproduce . Dialoguing with and through art, Bluest Nude considers alternative ways of holding and constructing the self. From Lorna Simpson to Gwendolyn Brooks to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, contemporary and ancestral artists populate Bluest Nude in a choreography of Codjoe’s making. Precise and halting, this finely wrought, riveting collection is marked by an acute rendering of highly charged emotional spaces. Purposefully shifting between the role of artist and subject, seer and seen, Codjoe’s poems ask what the act of looking does to a person—public looking, private looking, and that most intimate, singular spectacle of looking at one’s self. What does it mean to see while being seen? In poems that illuminate the tension between the possibilities of openness and and its impediments, Bluest Nude offers vulnerability as a medium to be immersed in and, ultimately, shared as a kind of “There are as many walls inside me / as there are bones at the bottom of the sea,” Codjoe writes in the masterful titular poem. “I want to be seen clearly or not at all.” “The end of the world has ended,” Codjoe’s speaker announces, “and desire is still / all I crave.” Startling and seductive in equal measure, this formally ambitious collection represents a powerful, luminous beginning.
120 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2022
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748 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
February 15, 2023
Holy balls, this book is gorgeous. I am deeply in love with it. It's so exquisite and sensuous and the poems, often forms or offshoots of ekphrasis are woven with craft, and heart, and intelligence. READ THIS BOOK NOW IF YOU LOVE GOOD POEMS.
December 31, 2024
Ending 2024 with a book I've been savoring for the past two months, since I saw Ama read from it at the Youngstown Lit festival. It's probably my favorite book of poetry I've read this year. Sensual and smart and moving and memorable.
August 24, 2024
This book of poems is so wonderfully personal, sexual, universal, and intimate. This is my first taste of Codjoe and I enjoyed her metaphor, language, and syntax used throughout. Many of the poems are ekphrastic that blend art, love and the art of life together with such skill. I wished I could write so well.
August 6, 2025
I feel high after reading this book of poetry!
Bluest Nude by Ama Codjoe. A gem of a book. Highly recommend!
She writes stories about people in beautiful poetic language—how they look, how they suffer, how they jump with joy. The poems are like internal monologues. What the prostitute really wants, how a daughter feels when her mother is dying, how the women feel taking care of white children.
“The guard signals for my attention: Move back,
Miss, behind the line, you’re too close to the painting”
Last lines
“My teeth grow yellow, ache, decay. I wash a plate,
polishing the moon’s face—both will outlast my brutal
hands. And so, in the minutes of after, the moon drips
on a silver rack and the plate floats, cracked with age,
in outer space … a stray soapsud sparkles then bursts.”
Bluest Nude by Ama Codjoe. A gem of a book. Highly recommend!
She writes stories about people in beautiful poetic language—how they look, how they suffer, how they jump with joy. The poems are like internal monologues. What the prostitute really wants, how a daughter feels when her mother is dying, how the women feel taking care of white children.
“The guard signals for my attention: Move back,
Miss, behind the line, you’re too close to the painting”
Last lines
“My teeth grow yellow, ache, decay. I wash a plate,
polishing the moon’s face—both will outlast my brutal
hands. And so, in the minutes of after, the moon drips
on a silver rack and the plate floats, cracked with age,
in outer space … a stray soapsud sparkles then bursts.”
April 25, 2024
stunning, stunning
July 25, 2023
As much as contemporary poetry may often seem to exist largely as an auxiliary support for the political concerns of academia today, there is still good work being published that sincerely engages with the artistic horizon of poetics. Including the work of some poets that is specifically political. And Ama Codjoe’s collection here represents just such an effort; one that stands on its artistic merits alone while also providing a substantive voice for the author’s own social concerns. The questions Codjoe grapples with though tend less to the politics of institution or economy and more towards the intimate end of the cultural spectrum. Womanhood and the perception of the body specifically. Which no doubt has a powerful appeal to those who share a similar lived experience but I can also say that, as someone who’s own life is defined by a largely opposite masculine perspective, the candor and insight with which she shares her viewpoint bridges any gulf here through that which is most universally human. This collection has many treasures of sympathy that every thoughtful reader would be enriched with through real appreciation.
Notable of course is the presence of nudity as a recurring motif and throughout several poems this provides linkage between the literal and symbolic order. As a book of deep self-reflection, issues of disclosed-ness, Alethea, arise quite naturally and that is expressed here concretely in various anecdotes and reveries. I can’t say however that this is ever intended as stimulation though. Rather, sex seems mostly isolated here from its erotic elements; a more therapeutically oriented note of nostalgia prevailing in the words of the speaker (Which need not be interpreted as completely autobiographical) along with some underlying disenchantment in regards the body. All of which finds its articulation in poems luminous with the urge for aesthetic exploration, an urge realized at various points through the vivacious meter and nimble surprises of sudden musicality. There is a lot to enjoy in these poems and one can only expect of the author a long career of further excellent work to come. And in a few instances at least, to my mind with Primordial Mirror, A Family Woven Like Night through Trees, Blueprint, and Bluest Nude, we are given examples of the art of poetry done at its very best:
the same. For once, it is not about the body.
I listened as my friend’s urge to kill herself grew
clamorous as a field of bells. She stank of it.
Her voice reeked, streaked with ringing – and
Lastly, the following is offered as a response poem to the collection:
THE CHILD WHO WAS PRIZED
A fired-clay now glazed with the end of adolescence;
Taken care of, esteemed and loved
Wherever her fingertips fall, the delicate wasps of synesthesia
Spring forth with cinged wings; fire following
Them out their burrows, whether wax or paper-homed.
Daylight lingers on in thimble pantomime
And theatre survives but mostly the actors just
Gather to socialize, to share those interruptions of the lines
Accidents like skies filled with floral parachutes, a falling garden
Unknown momentarily to these brick cities below
Towers, golden perhaps, where she is celebrated but
Artless themselves, ornamental in all
Notable of course is the presence of nudity as a recurring motif and throughout several poems this provides linkage between the literal and symbolic order. As a book of deep self-reflection, issues of disclosed-ness, Alethea, arise quite naturally and that is expressed here concretely in various anecdotes and reveries. I can’t say however that this is ever intended as stimulation though. Rather, sex seems mostly isolated here from its erotic elements; a more therapeutically oriented note of nostalgia prevailing in the words of the speaker (Which need not be interpreted as completely autobiographical) along with some underlying disenchantment in regards the body. All of which finds its articulation in poems luminous with the urge for aesthetic exploration, an urge realized at various points through the vivacious meter and nimble surprises of sudden musicality. There is a lot to enjoy in these poems and one can only expect of the author a long career of further excellent work to come. And in a few instances at least, to my mind with Primordial Mirror, A Family Woven Like Night through Trees, Blueprint, and Bluest Nude, we are given examples of the art of poetry done at its very best:
the same. For once, it is not about the body.
I listened as my friend’s urge to kill herself grew
clamorous as a field of bells. She stank of it.
Her voice reeked, streaked with ringing – and
Lastly, the following is offered as a response poem to the collection:
THE CHILD WHO WAS PRIZED
A fired-clay now glazed with the end of adolescence;
Taken care of, esteemed and loved
Wherever her fingertips fall, the delicate wasps of synesthesia
Spring forth with cinged wings; fire following
Them out their burrows, whether wax or paper-homed.
Daylight lingers on in thimble pantomime
And theatre survives but mostly the actors just
Gather to socialize, to share those interruptions of the lines
Accidents like skies filled with floral parachutes, a falling garden
Unknown momentarily to these brick cities below
Towers, golden perhaps, where she is celebrated but
Artless themselves, ornamental in all
June 8, 2023
Codjoe is a master of perspective and language. She positions the speaker as artist, muse, and subject; she inhabits both still figures and dancers in motion. The many roles of art and artist are in flux within Codjoe’s pen. The result is stunning, and both mystifying and illuminating. She grapples with the body, her body, motherhood, daughterhood, and loss without overwhelming the reader or pulling her too far under. It is clear from her debut collection that Codjoe is among the masters, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
March 30, 2023
Kate and I met Ama through a friend and she is AMAZING. Highly recommend this poetry collection ❣️
December 4, 2025
a gorgeous poetry collection. it is erotic but not pornographic. and the undressing does not end with clothes but continues to the flesh and bones. it is more sensual than sexual. this is my first collection from the poet. and i am excited to read more. it is earnest but still creative and fresh. it was also an easy read. when i read it. i felt like i was naked and taking a shower and thinking about my life against the cold wet tiles of the bathroom. it is how it felt. i do not know what more to say.
July 2, 2023
Rich with well-done and thoughtful ekphrastic poems, homages to the lineage of Black feminist artists and sharp criticism/dissection of writers like Susan Sontag, I was blown away by this collection and will keep revisiting it. Breathes texture into emotion, even as woman as stone, woman as sculpture reappears. Reminded me of some of Anne Carson’s work and if you like her stuff, you will love this.
May 2, 2024
Wow wow wow. One of the most stunning poetry collections I've ever read. I borrowed this from the library, but will definitely be buying a copy because I wanted to dogear and underline with abandon.
These are the kind of poems I want to write. Sexy, visceral, vivid.
In her acknowledgements, Codjoe addresses the reader and says she hopes these poems will both quench and inspire thirst. Mission accomplished.
These are the kind of poems I want to write. Sexy, visceral, vivid.
In her acknowledgements, Codjoe addresses the reader and says she hopes these poems will both quench and inspire thirst. Mission accomplished.
December 16, 2024
One of the most viscerally beautiful and breathtaking collections I have read this year. I could tell from the names praising this on the back that it would have the type of poetry presence that I get very drawn to and I was right multiple times over. I would love to read more of Ama Codjoe's work because there was so much to savor in this and I am so happy that I own it to continue to refer to.
Read
January 31, 2024read about half of the poems for a gender and aesthetic expression class. Some were really good, others left me confused, but that is sort of the point of art. I will maybe go back and read through all of them, and i’m looking forward to hearing her talk about her work next week
Read
January 23, 2025DNF. Not my vibe. I read a decent chuck of it this weekend and when I went to pick it up again just now, I couldn’t remember a single thing about it, the style or the topics or the structure or anything.
April 1, 2024
“I am my mother’s weeping wound.”
June 30, 2025
Fuckin dope!
What a batch of poems and a debut no less. A lot of tenderness tends. They're like a wound that sings. But also playful as piñata filled with caviar. One memorable line was "I want a lawyer that only eats pussy." Ama weaves from pole to pole, occasionally slipping in the knife, and filling to space with laughing gas. Contemporary poetry at its illist.
What a batch of poems and a debut no less. A lot of tenderness tends. They're like a wound that sings. But also playful as piñata filled with caviar. One memorable line was "I want a lawyer that only eats pussy." Ama weaves from pole to pole, occasionally slipping in the knife, and filling to space with laughing gas. Contemporary poetry at its illist.
January 26, 2023
An exquisite book of poems that bears reading more than once
December 7, 2023
Really loved this; some moments were incredibly relatable I couldn’t help but imagine scenes from my own life but for the reflective moments that involved subjects foreign to me they were still so personable.
November 16, 2025
Blueprint
As I lay on the prickly grass, grasshoppers chattered
in my hair. I stroked the ground like a beard. No one
sang. The whole sky was watching. It’s animal
piss in the dye pot that makes indigo blue. Blue
seeped out of me, but I wanted to make it myself.
I was obsessed with making. The yellow leaves
browned; the sugar pine needles refused
to shed. I couldn’t get the pigment right, it kept turning
to mud. I had attempted this before, making wine
from another’s body, stamping and stomping
my grape-stained feet. When I rose, I left the print
of a woman behind. I noticed the pear tree, how it gave
without question; I asked anyway, was asking
again, collecting broken seashells and tiny
elephant figurines. I needed a herd of blue.
I soaked black beans for the color they leave. My blue
was a habit, a kind of river I stepped into—sometimes
crossed—because it held the sky so perfectly.
I swung the axe. I swam with my arms. If I had a sister,
I’d have hid my breasts. I hammered nails—though
crookedly. Timber was my sacrum, timber were my
metatarsals, timber was my lungs’ pink flesh, timber
was my skull. I was a blueprint, blue on blue, mapless
but for those warm bones and my red heart barking.
—And when I turned without making my skirt
a basket, when I turned from all the fallen
pears, the sky was full of shaking: wet
with river-water. It wasn’t rain that fell—whatever it was
I collected in the cups of my hands. (3)
As I lay on the prickly grass, grasshoppers chattered
in my hair. I stroked the ground like a beard. No one
sang. The whole sky was watching. It’s animal
piss in the dye pot that makes indigo blue. Blue
seeped out of me, but I wanted to make it myself.
I was obsessed with making. The yellow leaves
browned; the sugar pine needles refused
to shed. I couldn’t get the pigment right, it kept turning
to mud. I had attempted this before, making wine
from another’s body, stamping and stomping
my grape-stained feet. When I rose, I left the print
of a woman behind. I noticed the pear tree, how it gave
without question; I asked anyway, was asking
again, collecting broken seashells and tiny
elephant figurines. I needed a herd of blue.
I soaked black beans for the color they leave. My blue
was a habit, a kind of river I stepped into—sometimes
crossed—because it held the sky so perfectly.
I swung the axe. I swam with my arms. If I had a sister,
I’d have hid my breasts. I hammered nails—though
crookedly. Timber was my sacrum, timber were my
metatarsals, timber was my lungs’ pink flesh, timber
was my skull. I was a blueprint, blue on blue, mapless
but for those warm bones and my red heart barking.
—And when I turned without making my skirt
a basket, when I turned from all the fallen
pears, the sky was full of shaking: wet
with river-water. It wasn’t rain that fell—whatever it was
I collected in the cups of my hands. (3)
April 8, 2024
4.5
Émouvant, puissant et très marquant.
In the flower of my body-
blossoms belonging, at last,
to me,
sovereign
place, where I am no one but myself: peony and cracked vase,
weeping beech and spiraled shell,
siren, matron, Jezebel—
a rush of bees enters me, and I am not stung;
petals unfold in night's bluest hymn.
After the , I mothered my mother,
became grandmother to myself, distant and
tender,
temples turning gray. The whole world cas-
caded
past my shoulders, like the hair self-hatred
taught me
to crave - though all my Barbie dolls were
Black.
And the Cabbage Patch Kid my grandmother
placed
under the artificial Christmas tree, sprinkled
with tinsel,
in Memphis, Tennessee, the city where my
mother waited
for her first pair of glasses in the Colored
Only
waiting room. She said the world changed from black-and-white to Technicolor that day.
My mother watches TV as I roll her hair. She
sits
between my legs. I've never birthed a child. I
have
fondled the crown of a lover's head, my thighs
framing
his dark brown eyes. I entered the world
excised
from my mother's womb. Her scar is a mark the color of time. I am my mother's weeping wound. On my last birthday, I cried into bath-
water. I hid
my tears from my mother because that's what
mothers do.
Émouvant, puissant et très marquant.
In the flower of my body-
blossoms belonging, at last,
to me,
sovereign
place, where I am no one but myself: peony and cracked vase,
weeping beech and spiraled shell,
siren, matron, Jezebel—
a rush of bees enters me, and I am not stung;
petals unfold in night's bluest hymn.
After the , I mothered my mother,
became grandmother to myself, distant and
tender,
temples turning gray. The whole world cas-
caded
past my shoulders, like the hair self-hatred
taught me
to crave - though all my Barbie dolls were
Black.
And the Cabbage Patch Kid my grandmother
placed
under the artificial Christmas tree, sprinkled
with tinsel,
in Memphis, Tennessee, the city where my
mother waited
for her first pair of glasses in the Colored
Only
waiting room. She said the world changed from black-and-white to Technicolor that day.
My mother watches TV as I roll her hair. She
sits
between my legs. I've never birthed a child. I
have
fondled the crown of a lover's head, my thighs
framing
his dark brown eyes. I entered the world
excised
from my mother's womb. Her scar is a mark the color of time. I am my mother's weeping wound. On my last birthday, I cried into bath-
water. I hid
my tears from my mother because that's what
mothers do.
Read
September 15, 2023Bluest Nude, for me, does well to include so many references to different aspects of black art, black people and black politicians, without ever feeling exclusionary of all types of readers. The personal aspects of the collection shine through with the support of these references, and nothing is overly niche.
I really enjoyed the themes of nudity, femininity and the body in general that Ama Codjoe explored. As someone who has always had a personality issue with my own body, I could pull extracts from the collection that match the feelings of alienation that I have. Our experiences are removed by a few notches but again, Codjoe uses language that provides access of relatability.
I think I lost something in my reading that would’ve stuck with me otherwise. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was but the majority of my understanding being surface level leaves me feeling a little mystified.
I really enjoyed the themes of nudity, femininity and the body in general that Ama Codjoe explored. As someone who has always had a personality issue with my own body, I could pull extracts from the collection that match the feelings of alienation that I have. Our experiences are removed by a few notches but again, Codjoe uses language that provides access of relatability.
I think I lost something in my reading that would’ve stuck with me otherwise. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was but the majority of my understanding being surface level leaves me feeling a little mystified.
January 12, 2024
the epigraph that opens the book is a beautiful encapsulation of what i believe ama’s process to get to this moment, these poems was.
“to name ourselves rather than be named we must first see ourselves…. so long unmirrored in our true selves we may have forgotten how we look.” - lorraine o’grady
every poem is such a beautiful excavation that encourages my own excavation. it’s the type of work that pulls from your center things you haven’t been able to put to paper. the type of poetry that makes you want to live between each letter, encircling the words, and zig zagging between the punctuation. it makes you want to interrogate why you think what you think and make space for things yet to be considered. the possibility of existence and expansion is incredibly present here.
“to name ourselves rather than be named we must first see ourselves…. so long unmirrored in our true selves we may have forgotten how we look.” - lorraine o’grady
every poem is such a beautiful excavation that encourages my own excavation. it’s the type of work that pulls from your center things you haven’t been able to put to paper. the type of poetry that makes you want to live between each letter, encircling the words, and zig zagging between the punctuation. it makes you want to interrogate why you think what you think and make space for things yet to be considered. the possibility of existence and expansion is incredibly present here.
June 20, 2024
The blue of childbirth, of snowfall. Blue the lost tooth of rainwater. Blue as it is pained into aching for ugliness. Blue as a shape that not so much shifts as moves in reverse to reverse. Ama Codjoe’s Bluest Nude is a cleansing work of saturation both transient and kept. It dances away and in place, as a spider’s dream twinning its silver invite between light and death. Redaction and revision refuse to share an afterlife, but meet in the mud as the clayed rendezvous of lyric and verse. This is the stuff of making. The body as a wordless spell. As nakedness stripping beneath an unfinished star. There is always an image one must entertain to be a form. Codjoe sees it, and sees it change.
March 25, 2023
These poems are rich, offering metaphor and surprising, mysterious imagery, but they basically flow naturally and are easy to read through. (Example: "I didn't always know we'd be joined like this—that I couldn't leave any of myself behind.") One fragmented "found" poem is more experimental.
There's a strong, rooted self-consciousness in the poems, with many references to psychological concepts, artistic history, and important Black people in the arts and politics. But don't fret over unpacking the references—I think that Codjoe is ultimately reporting on her understanding of herself.
There's a strong, rooted self-consciousness in the poems, with many references to psychological concepts, artistic history, and important Black people in the arts and politics. But don't fret over unpacking the references—I think that Codjoe is ultimately reporting on her understanding of herself.
August 9, 2023
This is a strong collection of poems from start to finish. Codjoe explores various themes such as grief, love, sexuality, motherhood, violence against women, growing up, and more through incredibly raw, yet gentle reflections on the body. The images she creates in her lines are delicate and crushing all at once.
I often find books of poetry to be inconsistently strong, and as a result, I only revisit a handful of poems within them. In this case however, I plan to reread and reread Bluest Nude in its entirety.
I often find books of poetry to be inconsistently strong, and as a result, I only revisit a handful of poems within them. In this case however, I plan to reread and reread Bluest Nude in its entirety.
October 9, 2023
A delicious little collection of poems. Not every poem hit, but the ones that did, whoa boy. "She Said" is maybe the most powerful of the bunch and one that will stick with me. Codjoe definitely has a specific style and many of the same themes that pop up throughout her poetry. Her poems are real, no holding back, and I enjoyed the style. Themes of being a woman and a woman of color as well as her reflections on art and life are very well done.
March 1, 2024
At first, I was taken aback reading Codjoe's poems. I had to set them aside and read other things. But I am glad I came back to them. She writes about her body, her exes, her mother, her memories, her dreams, her childhood, her father, her lovers, her pains, her aspirations, and more.
She breaks up her formatting; she changes tone; she writes honoring tradition in free verse. There's a universe inside the covers.
She breaks up her formatting; she changes tone; she writes honoring tradition in free verse. There's a universe inside the covers.
December 30, 2022
Oh wow, read this and watch avidly for more. It is foolish to make predictions about future literary achievement, but Codjoe seems to have something special that separates her work from so many other poets whose brilliant first books are followed by much less inspired second volumes. I hope we are seeing the début of a voice essential to the future of US poetry.
September 26, 2023
Quotes (unformatted)
I'm saying the middle
was filled with the end. (9)
I want to be seen clearly or not at all. (64)
My mother's back shines
like the hands I wipe on the towel's face.
Weren't miracles always beginning this way? (71)
When the pond freezes over, I'll walk
to its center and lie face up until it is May
and I am floating. (82)
I'm saying the middle
was filled with the end. (9)
I want to be seen clearly or not at all. (64)
My mother's back shines
like the hands I wipe on the towel's face.
Weren't miracles always beginning this way? (71)
When the pond freezes over, I'll walk
to its center and lie face up until it is May
and I am floating. (82)
April 18, 2025
The price of paper towels changed and the price
of toilet paper and the price of white bread and milk.
Whiteness did not change. Some things stayed
the same. We named the moon for its changes, but
it remained the same. Gravity pulled at my organs
like the moon's tug makes a king tide. America's king
would inevitably change and inevitably stay the same.
of toilet paper and the price of white bread and milk.
Whiteness did not change. Some things stayed
the same. We named the moon for its changes, but
it remained the same. Gravity pulled at my organs
like the moon's tug makes a king tide. America's king
would inevitably change and inevitably stay the same.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews