Blue Memento by Robert Carr

Reading these finely-detailed poems is like finding an old bottle of Prince Matchabelli perfume or an aunt’s evocative box of scented blush powder—feminine emblems of a bygone era. How delicate (‘this is before secrets/ find a name in daisies or the nests of birds’), economical, and bull’s-eye frank (‘every memory is bed-wet yellow’) Blue Memento is! Taking his cue from Elizabeth Bishop’s sublime, domestic classic, ‘Sestina,’ Robert Carr crafts a beguiling family portrait that deftly captures a boy’s deep bond with his astute and vibrant grandmother—one full of rescued color, empathy, and elliptical beauty.

—Cyrus Cassells, author of Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch?

Beyond Bea


First: air in the small space 
between mouths. 

Color, swirling on the palate,
my bright blue 

mixed with Bea red, creates 
a pure and silent hum 

of violet. Out of time, 
the only thing there is, 

that dusk, purple. 
Remembered things 

seal in our colors, 
recognition of lick 

in smooth heat. 
In this recollected place— 

I float above cardinal 
and barn swallow, 

grasp the touch of hands, 
the next, that’s more. 

About the Author

Robert Carr was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1959. He is a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine where he studied philosophy and was an active member of the Bates Dance Ensemble. Following his undergraduate work, Robert moved to Portland, where he pursued a brief career in the arts as an actor with the Children’s Theater of Maine.

In 1984, Robert moved to Boston, volunteered with the AIDS Action Committee, and became the first HIV testing counselor with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In response to the HIV pandemic, Robert engaged in a 33-year career in public health and recently retired from the position of Deputy Director for the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences in Massachusetts. Robert is the author of Amaranth, published by Indolent Books, two full-length collections published by 3: A Taos Press— The Unbuttoned Eye and The Heavy of Human Clouds, and Phallus Sprouting Leaves, winner of the 2024 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series at Seven Kitchens Press. A Pushcart and Best of The Net nominated poet, Robert’s work has appeared in many journals and magazines including The Greensboro Review, Lana Turner Journal, The Massachusetts Review, and Shenandoah. His website is robertcarr.org