ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relationship between collage and personal crisis in Maggie Nelson’s Bluets (2009) and Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation (2014). The two works are examined alongside one another owing to many formal and thematic parallels between them – from their reliance on short paragraphs and appropriation to their concern with depression and thwarted love. Bluets and Dept. of Speculation are discussed in chronological order; each part outlines the context of the book’s publication and critical reception, investigates its indebtedness to the poetics of collage and analyzes the work’s representation of personal crisis. The chapter demonstrates how collage form is used in both works to reinforce the sense of disequilibrium and disintegration in the aftermath of disillusionment and loss.
